Kinky Boots
by Blue Spotted Leopard
Summary: Sanji never kept it a secret how much he disliked the okama he was stuck with for 2 years. But he learns the hard way that one shouldn't anger Emporio Ivankov. You could end up experiencing some unfortunate changes.
1. Chapter 1

**8th August 2011  
**

**Summary:**

Sanji never kept it a secret how much he disliked the okama he was stuck with for 2 years. But he learns the hard way that one shouldn't anger Emporio Ivankov. You could end up experiencing some unfortunate changes.

**Disclaimer:**

All characters belong to respective owners. This is non-profit fan-based story.

**Notes:**

-The name 'Kinky Boots' was inspired by the British film that was released in 2005.

-I'll apologise now for Iva's accent. I found it quite difficult to try and get it true to the character but was quite unsuccessful.

* * *

**Chapter 1: **

Black Leg Sanji was on top of the world. Finally his challenge had ended and just in time really. He had two more weeks and he'll be free of this hell. He'd been in Kammabakka Kingdom for little under two years now and he couldn't wait to meet up with his old crew. They would be especially pleased with all the fantastic meals he could now produce with his new knowledge of attack cuisine.

"Hehe, I could make lots of snacks for Nami-san and Robin-chan," the blonde giggled perversely. "I'll make them sweets and they'll smile their lovely smiles of theirs…" he shuddered. "Not like the creepy men here… and I'll finally get a kiss of appreciation from my lovely ladies!" He sat down on a nearby bench and stretched his long legs out.

"Oh I can't wait to get my boat in two weeks time," he sighed. "Back to where people are normal and aren't freaks. It's just not natural here. I need to get out of here," he muttered the last part under his breath.

Little did he know that Ivankov was listening in to his rant and the okama did not like what he was hearing. It wasn't a secret that Sanji dislike the okama way of life, the cook made that quite obvious considering he constantly griped and moaned about it. However he felt that Sanji had taken it too far this time and everyone knew that when someone angers Emporio Ivankov, strange things happen.

The okama came up behind Sanji and whispered in his ear. "Vhat was that Sanji-boy?"

Sanji jumped up and spun around on his heel to face the Queen, wearing a rather startled expression.

"Oh Ivankov, I was just saying I can't wait to leave this shitty island back to where things make sense," he said casually as he had learnt a long time ago not to show fear in front of the okama. They always caused more trouble when he was afraid.

Iva could tell that the cook had tried to be as truthful as possible to him, but he still didn't like the insults to the okama-way that he had heard before.

"Oh really," Ivankov smiled sweetly (or as sweetly as he could). "That's not vhat I heard. I heard something about being freaks of nature… Do you think of the okama vay as unnatural Sanji-boy?"

"No," Sanji scowled before a nervous expression took over. Iva noticed this but came to the wrong conclusion.

"Maybe your still just repressing what you really think about your sexuality," he said suggestively. "You know there is nothing vong with you if you start having feelings about other men, it doesn't make you veaker."

"What! NO!" Sanji blurted out. "I love women. I'm not some disgusting freak…" but the blonde trailed off realizing what he had just said and who he was talking to."

"Vhy you!" Ivankov screamed out, there was nothing disgusting about being an okama. In fury he went to attack the cook who was quick off the mark and blocked his fist in an instant. The blonde had two years to learn the newkama kenpo and he was quite used to the spontaneous attacks that the okama did to try and catch him off guard. However Sanji had never actually fought with the Queen of Kammabakka Kingdom and Ivankov and he was stretching the blonde to the limit.

The cook had noticed that Ivankov had his claws which he new he had to avoid. There was no knowing what hormone poison he was trying to use. With a quick dodge to the left he narrowly missed being scratched across the chest, and Sanji instantly brought up he right leg to knock away the second clawed hand coming his way.

"Sheesh, I'm sorry, but there is no reason too…" Sanji was interrupted as Ivankov kicked him in the abdomen sending him reeling back. Finding his footing he skidded to a halt and Sanji started to shout again. "Oi you shitty okama, what's your problem? I've finished my challenges!"

The okama wasn't listening and he had to block an attack with his left leg and then he flipped backwards to try and kick the man away. Sanji stayed on his hands and used his momentum to deliver a spinning kick to the okama's abdomen, but Iva dodged and kicked Sanji's hands from underneath him. The blonde landed flat on his back so he instantly jumped up to his feet, but Iva was waiting for him and jabbed his claws towards him before Sanji could block.

Sanji screamed when he felt Iva's claws go into his ribs like a knife to butter. Whatever hormone it was it had reached his bloodstream instantly and he began to feel numb. It started from his chest and spread down his arms and then down his torso and his legs until he couldn't feel the tips of his toes. Iva slowly removed his claws and stepped back in apprehension, as Sanji stood frozen in alarm. The numbness was suddenly being replaced with a strange sensation that the cook had not felt before. It felt as his bloodstream was made of something else, and he tried to move but his legs collapsed under him.

"_Damn it,"_ he thought. _"Of all the people to pick a fight with it had to be the one person I still can't quite beat. What has the bastard done to me?"_

All nerve endings began to tingle and the cook could feel his bones condensing and shifting. His muscles were shrinking, becoming more lean and slender. He looked at his hands, they were shrinking and the digits were becoming thinner and more delicate. Sanji didn't even want to look down, but he could feel the weight on his chest increasing and his manhood disappearing.

Once it was all over Sanji sat on his knees with his clothes hanging loosely on his shoulders and he sat trying to regulate his breathing. He didn't look to see what Ivankov had done, he daren't. However, he knew that he had just been on the receiving end of Iva's 'Woman Hormone.' He could feel the difference; it was as though all his testosterone had drained from him.

"Why?" was all Sanji could say as he (now she) flinched as the low tone of his voice was gone to be replaced with a more feminine pitch. His brain wouldn't function properly as the shock took over. _**(Authors Note: From now on Sanji will be referred as female throughout)**_

"I lost my temper," Ivankov said as he came closer to inspect the transformation. "My aren't you adorable as a woman Sanji-chan."

"St-stay away from me you freak," Sanji stuttered. "What did I do to deserve this?"

"You should know by now, Sanji-chan, that I don't like the okama's beliefs to be disrespected,"

"You always said that you believe that people should who they want to be. I said that I was born to love women… a mans man! Why would you do this to me?" Sanji growled as anger started to set in over the shock.

"Yes this is true, but vhy should I respect your sexuality if you don't respect ours. Anyway I've been talking with the candies and ve don't think that your interests have been completely towards women anyway."

"B-but you said that I could keep my manhood if I completed the challenges," Sanji retorted.

"I believe the challenges were to learn the new recipes; your training is not complete until you leave the island. Which means that you vere never safe from us Okama."

"That is a dirty trick you shitty bastard."

"Not really, it just slipped my mind, since I changed you because you made me angry, but it's a good excuse don't you think Sanji-chan." Ivankov smiled. "Your training ends vhen you leave in two veeks."

"If I fight against you again and win can you change me back," she pleaded.

"Sorry I can't do that. The only reason I came to see you was to tell you that I was leaving the island today to go and meet up with Dragon and the revolutionaries. I had just received a letter requesting my presence."

"Well then turn me back now!"

"No," Iva said. "Take this as something to remember us from."

"No!"

"Then take it as a lesson on respect Sanji-chan."

"You have to change me back Iva-sama," Sanji begged, holding back a sneer at the man. "How are my nakama going to recognise me when I get back to Sabaody Archipelago."

"I'm sure you'll figure something out."

"No you don't understand how am I supposed to fight with this crappy body," Sanji argued. "How can I face Luffy if I'm weaker. If I can't fight I'll just be a burden."

"I guess it's a good thing that the transformation doesn't affect your muscle memory and you ability to fight then," Ivankov said. "You have to veeks to get used to your new limits, but I have very little doubt that your strength has stayed the same to when you were a man. Look I have to get going. Your boat will be ready in two veeks. It was a pleasure training you." With a skip in his step the Emperio Ivankov wandered off to the harbor.

"That's it! You can't just leave like that!" Sanji shouted, but Iva just waved over his shoulder and shouted,

"Say hi to Straw-boy for me Sanji-chan!"

"Shit!" Sanji shouted and she slammed her fist to the floor. What was she to do now?


	2. Chapter 2

**21st August 2011  
**

**Summary:**

Sanji never kept it a secret how much he disliked the okama he was stuck with for 2 years. But he learns the hard way that one shouldn't anger Emporio Ivankov. You could end up experiencing some unfortunate changes.

**Disclaimer:**

All characters belong to respective owners. This is non-profit fan-based story.

* * *

**Chapter 2:**

Okama began to congregate and croon over Sanji as soon as Ivankov left. It took forever to calm down enough before Sanji could stand up again, but once on her feet she bolted pass the okama in embarrassment. She didn't care how feminine she looked, but at least she wasn't sobbing. Trying desperately to keep her slacks from falling down she ran straight to her room, into the en-suite bathroom and bolted the door shut. This was the only room that she was safe from the okamas antics. It was only about a month into her challenge when she had woken up to find them looming over her. It had become almost a weekly ritual to find that the okama had invaded her room in her sleep or whilst she was in the shower. She had managed to fight them easily enough and prevent them from making her cross-dress.

'_I'll have to sort out a lock for my bedroom," _she thought. _"They may be okama but I don't want them getting into my room in this form."_ It just wasn't right for men to barge into a lady's quarters. The blonde faltered. _"Wait what I am I thinking? I shouldn't have to be worrying about that! I am a MAN! What am I going to do now? What would Nami-san and Robin-chan think of me now? I don't even have a chance with them now."_

She took a deep breath when she heard the distinct footsteps of one of the transvestites heading down a nearby corridor. After sitting in silence for what felt like forever Sanji felt herself nodding off. All the adrenaline in her system was beginning to wear off, leaving her feeling extremely sleepy…

.

.

z

Z

z

.

.

BANG!

Sanji jumped awake when the door to the bedroom slammed shut.

"Shit," she groaned as she tried to get her bearings. "Oh yeah," remembering the events of the previous day. She got up from her crouched position against the door and grimaced. Apparently falling asleep like that is not good for your back and neck.

"God what time is it?" She said as she looked at her watch that was hanging loosely on her wrist. It was 7am. How had she managed to sleep the night through? She popped her back into place and headed for the mirror.

"Might as well get this over with," she said as she looked at her reflection.

Her face looked slightly softer, the masculine sharpness of his jaw and cheekbones had become rounder and more feminine. Gone was the mustache and goatee that she had taken so long to get the way he wanted. Her lips were slightly fuller and her right eye was covered with a long curtain of blonde hair that matched the length the locks flowing down her back. She was sure that her hair had stayed the same during the change, in fact she was positive. So when had that happened. Maybe it was a side effect and happened overnight. It was the same for her nails. They seemed to have very long while she slept.

Sanji realised that she was the same height as there was no change in the level in which all the windows and cabinets. However, after taking a quick glance at her body she could definitely tell she was slimmer. Her trousers had fallen down as she got up and she could clearly see her long smooth legs. However she was slightly disappointed that she did not have the 'curves' that Nami-san and Robin-chan had.

Anxiously she pulled at shrugged of her blazer leaving her in her oversized boxers and light green shirt. With a horrible tasting mouth and grimy skin Sanji decided that a shower was probably a good idea. It would also probably help her get used to her new form.

She made her way to the shower and turned it on before pulling off the rest of her clothes. The cook took a look at herself in the long mirror. She could see the blush rising in her cheeks, as a man she would have stared like a pervert, but now the tables had turned she only felt embarrassment.

"How depressing can it get that the first woman I see in 2 years is myself," Sanji muttered. "First one naked for longer than that."

Sanji was never a bulky man as her fighting style depended on both flexibility and strength but now her body was much more slender. The muscle mass on her torso had decreased a lot but she could still feel that her core strength remained the same. She would have to test her strength and fighting skills. Iva did say that her strength and muscle memory had stayed the same but Sanji wanted to see it for herself before she got her hopes up. Besides what would he do if he couldn't fight alongside the rest of the crew? Also looking down to her feet, she frowned; they were much smaller than they were when she was a man. Surely they wouldn't cause as much damage as before. Then again her shoes did take the brunt of her attacks so maybe she wouldn't have to worry about that.

After a few more minutes the mirror began to fog up and she got into the shower. She felt sick to her stomach at the feeling of uncleanliness on her skin. It took several minutes of scrubbing before she felt clean enough, but she still felt tainted. Afterwards she went on to clean her hair. It took ages for her to get through all her hair and Sanji really wished that she had some conditioner as the blonde locks were already beginning to tangle.

"_Luckily I'm on an island full of cross dressers, hopefully they'll have some," _she thought_. _Once she was finished turned off the shower and got out to find a towel. All her hair was dripping behind her meaning that she had both her eyes visible and after finding her towel rack she pulled one off and attempted to wrap her hair up like she had seen Nami and Robin do. However after failing a couple times she just toweled it down and went to drying the rest of herself. Once finished she wrapped a towel around hair and went back to her hair. On her third try Sanji had managed to get her hair up and headed to her bedroom with her clothes in her arms, feeling oddly triumphant.

"Good Morning Sanji-chan," the voice in the corner of her bedroom made her nearly jump out of her skin. Invankov's second in command Caroline was sat in the only armchair in the bedroom.

"Fucking Hell!" The blonde yelled. "At least knock before coming into my room you shitty okama!"

"I did," Carol said as he grinned at the blonde. "I even slammed the door."

Sanji paused as he remembered what had woken her up. "What the heck are you doing in here in the first place?"

"It my surprise you Sanji-chan," the transvestite said. "But I came to see how you were coping."

"What do you think?"

Carol's grin sent chills up the cook's spine, "Ivan-sama asked me to make sure that you get used to your new body before you leave in 2 weeks."

"Oh its nice to see he's so concerned now," Sanji sneered, clutching onto her towel. "Can you leave now?"

"Nope! I came to give you this," the drag queen picked up a piece of fabric and gave it to Sanji. "It should fit."

Sanji took it off him pulled it open to show a repulsive blue dress.

"Meet me in the courtyard when your done, we have much to discuss." Caroline left Sanji by herself to get ready for the day.

The cook looked at the dress in disgust. It was worse than what the cross dressers normally wear. She looked desperately in her wardrobe to find something else to wear, but there was nothing small enough to fit her. Her trousers would fall down almost instantly if she tried wearing them.

Having no choice in the matter she slipped off her towel and pulled the dress over her head and found some suitable underwear. She then toweled down her hair and combed it through. Sanji had hoped that Carol had brought some shoes with her as well. Luckily she found a small pair of pumps at her door so she slipped them on and went to find Carol.

She was lucky that today seemed to be one of those days where the okama were not around. These days were few and far between since there was normally at least a couple around to annoy and/or chase her. It seemed a bit disconcerting considering the situation she was in. Had they lost interest now that she was no loner a man or were they planning something? Sanji really hoped it was the former.

Walking in the tent like dress was quite difficult. The fabric was too loose and heavy and her legs kept getting caught up in it. By time she had reached the courtyard she had stumbled twice and got snagged by the vegetation more times than she could count.

Caroline was waiting as promised and he had a very worrying grin on his face. Sanji was used to the man being surrounded by admirers, since he was the second in command under Ivankov. This only made Sanji more concerned. The shitty okama were not here either? Then where were they?

"Sanji-chan!" Caroline exclaimed. "That dress looks fantastic on you!"

The cook raised her visible eyebrow. The dress looked horrid and she had only been a woman for about 16 hours and even she knew that.

"What are you talking about?" she said. "It looks horrible. The sooner I can sort out my wardrobe the better!" Yet that only made Caroline's grin even more sinister. That was when it hit Sanji. Where the other okama leaving her alone because she had finally dressed like them?

They had done it before. When she first arrived she tried to be like them and they stopped chasing her around the island. But when she found out about Luffy it was like a kick in the gut. She had to stop acting like a nancy-boy and get back to being Black-Leg Sanji!

"Your mistaken Sanji-chan," Caroline retorted. "You finally look like one of us!"

"But I'm not one of you, I need to change back and get home to where everything makes sense."

"That kind of attitude is what got you into this mess in the first place," Caroline pouted.

Sanji scowled. As if she didn't already know that. She angrily flicked her hair out of her face and it hung loosely over her right eye. She put the other side behind her ear and ran her hand through the blonde lock in frustration. Her hair was still quite damp and it was already very tangled, she sighed in frustration as her long nails got caught up in the yellow strands.

"You should brush that properly Sanji-chan," Carol scolded. "You don't want that beautiful hair to get damaged."

"Like I care," she grimaced "It wasn't this long after I transformed yesterday. I just woke up with it like this."

"Oh really?"

"Yes really," she crossed her arms and glared at the transvestite. "Now when is Ivankov coming back to change me back to a man?"

Caroline frowned. He didn't like the fact that Sanji was still in denial about her transformation. Ivan-sama was not coming back for months and by that time Sanji would be long gone and reunited with the straw hats. Didn't she realise that this was permanent?

"Ivankov-sama is not going to be back in time for you to leave. He told me that it is going to be permanent."

"What," Sanji squealed like a girl, she felt the heat rise up in her face and she put her head down in embarrassment. No matter how hard Sanji tried, she could not repress the feminine outbursts. It was humiliating and she really wanted to change back before she got even less manly. It was taking all her self-control not to burst into tears right in front of the okama.

"Anyway I brought you here to ask you what is it like being a woman?"

"What are you asking me for?" She scowled, with her eyes still fixed on the floor. "You should already know that. I'm sure your great Emperio Ivankov has given some of you the honour of being changed."

"That would be where you are wrong Sanji-chan," Caroline frowned. "Iva-sama never changed any of us. She insisted that we were fine the way we are."

"Lucky you," Sanji replied quietly. "He didn't want to violate his loyal subject. I can't wait to get out of here away form you freaks."

This worried the islands keeper. To see such a headstrong young man to be reduced to this was upsetting. She was slowly receding into herself and this would not do. To Caroline this was punishment enough for Sanji so he would do anything to get the woman back onto her feet.

"How are you really feeling?" Carol said softly trying to break down the blonde's defenses. Sanji had been through a rather traumatic experience and her hormones must be causing havoc to her emotions.

Sanji was shocked at the tone that the okama had suddenly adopted; She paused and took a deep breath.

"I feel violated. Everything I once was has been taken from me in one moment. These damn female hormones are making me feel like I want to cry and I want to wake up from this horrible night mare." Sanji paused. But you know what, I'm pissed off more than anything, but I guess it could be worse. I'm not as hideous as I expected to be," Sanji frowned as she kept looking to the floor.

"Don't worry you look beautiful," Caroline said. "The Candies think so too!"

Sanji blushed in embarrassment. _"Damn those female hormones!" _ She didn't believe that anyone should go so far to call her beautiful. Of course she paid special attention to her appearance and worn tailored suits, but she had never done it for compliments, it was just proper grooming.

She chuckled to herself.

"You know I was so looking forward to seeing a real woman, but instead the first woman I see is myself. How sad is that?"

"You'll probably make less of a fool of yourself now when you land in Sabaody."

"I doubt it," Sanji said wistfully. She still was looking forward to getting away from the okama. However the thought f returning to Sabaody is three weeks brought forward a new worry.

"I'm also really worried that my crew won't recognise me when I get back to Sabaody in 3 weeks time," Sanji said finding a cigarette and lighting it. "That bloody Marimo would probably never let me hear the end of it either."

"Look don't worry, we'll sort something out when the time comes," Carol replied with a big smile. "In fact Ivankov-sama already has sorted out what to do."

"Really, what?" She finally looked up and made eye contact with the man. There was a slight glimmer of hope in her eye.

"He left you a note," he said. "Or something like that."

"Where is it then?"

"That's not what I brought you over to discuss," Caroline avoided. "We've been given the task of helping you get used to being a woman, for before you meet up with your nakama."

Sanji sneered, "How the heck are you going to do that. If you haven't noticed this island has no women. There isn't much that you can help me with."

"Such little faith you have in us Sanji-chan, but there is one thing that we can help you with." The okama disappeared and came back with a large box.

"Since your now a woman it would probably be better if you wore heels more often," Caroline said. "So Iva-sama and I have decided to give you some training with these."

"What no way in hell are you making me wear those bloody high heels again," Sanji grimaced. "I may have changed gender but those tacky shoes are not my style…" However her rant was halted when Carol opened the box to reveal a tall pair of leather Victorian style lace up boots. They had large heels and probably went about three quarters of the way up Sanji's calf. Sanji stared open mouthed at the boots; they were not tacky at all, they were a work of art.

"These boots are made with a breathable leather that can withstand more wear and tear than normal, even your old shoes. Their heels are reinforced with a titanium alloy so they don't snap when running, jumping or kicking," Carol smirked. "So Sanji-chan what do think?"

"They're beautiful," Sanji said.

"Well we have a few more of these reinforced battle shoes and we'll add them to your wardrobe if you me and the 'girls' one favor," Carol bargained. "Let us train you."

Sanji paused; she really didn't like the idea of changing more of herself than necessary. It was bad enough that he had fallen in love with the women's shoes so quickly.

"Did I mention that using heels could increase the strength of your attacks?"

Now that was an inviting prospect, but she still couldn't bring herself to trust the okama enough for him to train her.

"So I'm guessing there's a catch," she said to the okama. Caroline shook his head.

"Okay you win," Sanji conceded. "But first I want a change of clothes." She gestured to her outfit. The tent-like dress was not very easy to move around in. It would only hider her movements.

"Ahh yes, to the tailor with you," Carol exclaimed. "Michelle is waiting for you. You'll look so cute when she's done with you Sanji-chan."

"Yeah, Yeah," Sanji replied as she waved and headed off to the tailor shop. "Thanks, I'll see you later for training."

"Be back for the start of your training after lunch Sanji-chan," Caroline called after her.

Michelle was the only tailor on the island. He was a small feminine man, but he was one of the few people on the island that wasn't always in drag. When working in the shop Michelle liked to liked to wear the most extravagant suits.

Although he mainly did dresses for the okama, Sanji had discovered that he had made some of the finest suits and gowns this side of the Grand Line. The world-renowned suit maker even made clothing for royalty and even some marine officers before he found his calling and moved to Momoiro Island.

The man in question was sat behind his desk flicking through the latest gossip magazine with a bored expression on his face. The bell on the door rang as Sanji came in and Michelle's eyes came up from the page he was reading. There was an instantaneous reaction and the man jumped to his feet in excitement.

"Sanji-san!" he exclaimed. "I was wondering when I was going to be seeing you! The whole island has been buzzing about you."

"Yeah Shell," Sanji smiled sheepishly. She wouldn't call the man be his okama name, but the man had this problem before when away from the island so he didn't mind being called be the nickname. Heterosexual men tended to be uncomfortable with a man with a woman's name suiting them up. "It looks like I'll need a new wardrobe."

Michelle looked at the dress that she was wearing in distaste.

"Yes it looks like Carol-sama found the worst dress possible to have you wear," he said. "I mean really that is just embarrassing!"

Sanji blushed. She knew that the dress was just temporary and was made to fit overweight middle-aged men.

"Would it be possible for you to adjust my suits to fit better?" Sanji asked.

"Yes but I want to make you some new suits form scratch as well. Some more feminine ones as well," he said as he inspected Sanji from afar. "I'll have to sort out your casual and formal wear as well. A whole new wardrobe is in order!"

"Aren't you taking this a bit far," she cringed. "I can get some new stuff when I leave in 2 weeks."

Not to mention she couldn't afford it. When Sanji was not being chased or tortured by the islands inhabitants Sanji managed to get a job doing waiting and bar work. The job was okay, she had done similar work in the Baratie, but it did get a bit annoying when the okama would start to hassle her half way through a shift. She had managed to earn enough to buy a new set of suits from Michelle, but she did not have nearly enough to buy a whole new wardrobe. She still had to use what she had left to stock up on food at Sabaody. It was her responsibility that the Sunny was sufficiently stocked and she couldn't earn anymore working since this new training with Carol with take up all her time.

"Nonsense Sanji-chan!"

"But I can't afford it."

"Its on the house, Carol-sama said that Ivankov-sama is paying for everything," Michelle said. "Now can you strip down and stand on that stool so I can measure you."

Sanji paled, she couldn't strip down in front of him, she didn't have the proper underwear!

"Sorry?"

"I need to take your measurements so I can make you some better clothes," he repeated.

"But…" Sanji gestured to her chest, which made Michelle pause.

"Oh please Sanji-san, don't tell me your more embarrassed about stripping in front of a gay man in your female form than when you a man?" The man said, making Sanji blush.

"Look could you at least find some suitable underwear for me first?"

"Fine," the man relented. "MIKA! Be a dear and find a women's size…" He paused and looked at Sanji. "Eight strappy vest please!"

Moments later Mika, Michelle's assistant, came running in with a black vest top for Sanji to wear.

"I need to measure you properly before I give you proper underwear, so put this on." Michelle said. "Mika, could you get that orange suit that we finished for Sanji last week."

The man ran off to the walk in closet and left Sanji and Michelle to start getting his measurements. Sanji quickly took off the tent and put on the snugly fitting vest, leaving her with her boxers and vest top.

"So I heard you really pissed off Iva-sama," Michelle said as he put his tape measure around her chest to start jotting down his measurements.

"So it would seem," she replied through gritted teeth. "What am I going to do Shell?"

"You'll be fine," the man replied, but Sanji still didn't seem convinced. "Look your going to have to get used to the prospect of being a girl Sanji-san. Iva-sama may not ever change you back. It doesn't mean that you have to change who you are. You just have some more feminine attributes."

Sanji couldn't agree more. If she didn't think about the change, she still felt like the same person, but she also couldn't deny that there were certain things that she could not keep control over. She had been close to crying in front of Caroline and she was mortified when she screamed in such a high pitch.

"Yeah I guess your right. I mean I still feel like the same person I guess. Its just I've not been a woman for a day yet I can tell something's not right. I'm getting overly emotional and my hair grew longer overnight," Sanji said. "God will it always be bloody like this."

"That's what's good about being a cross dresser, all the girl things with less of the hormonal imbalances."

"That's not helping," Sanji scowled.

"Don't worry Sanji-chan," Michelle reassured as he noted down a measurement in his notebook. "The hormonal imbalance is only temporary. It takes a while to settle down but I'm sure you'll be fine by time it comes for you to leave."

"I hope so," Sanji replied. "Do you know why my hair grew so long in the first place?"

"Nope."

"Oh that's helpful."

"Yep," was all she got for a reply as Michelle finished his measurements and disappeared to find Sanji some clothes.

Mika arrived not long afterwards holding a black suit that had an orange shirt and black tie. Sanji remembered that she had ordered it especially for when she arrived at Sabaody in order to try and impress the girls.

'_Fat lot of good that's going to do me now," _she thought.

"So you're taking this pretty well Sanji-san," Mika said pulling the cook out of her thoughts. "I would have thought you would have rampaged through the whole island by now."

"Yeah I thought I would be as well Mika-san. I guess it's just the shock."

"Don't worry you'll be on fighting form in no time," he said. "And you'll be back to your womanizing ways… or should I say man-eating."

"Wait what?"

"Ahhh here we are," Michelle interrupted, as he appeared form the back with an armful of clothing. "Lets see if these fit first." He pulled out some underwear and a bra from the pile and handed them to the cook.

"You can go behind the screen," Mika gestured to the screen in the corner. "Yell if you need anything."

Once Sanji had been fitted with the right underwear she was asked to put on the suit Mika had brought through. As she stood on the platform while Michelle started to pin the suit in, Sanji watched Mika out of the corner of her eye.

"What did you mean by man-eating Mika?"

"Don't tell me you don't know?"

"What?"

"Well we always thought you were bisexual."

"Excuse me?" Sanji glared at the man.

"No Mika is right," Michelle added. "Everyone noticed it but we never realised that you didn't realise yourself."

"I do not like men!"

"Well you do realise that with the feminine hormones coursing through your body that you probably do."

Sanji paused. They were right of course, but she still had feelings for women. That funny feeling was still there when she thought about her Nami-san and Robin-chan.

Yet, she would never admit that she was bisexual before all this happened.


	3. Chapter 3

**27th August 2011  
**

**Summary:**

Sanji never kept it a secret how much he disliked the okama he was stuck with for 2 years. But he learns the hard way that one shouldn't anger Emporio Ivankov. You could end up experiencing some unfortunate changes.

**Disclaimer:**

All characters belong to respective owners. This is non-profit fan-based story.

* * *

**Chapter 3:**

Sanji had left the tailor in a considerably better mood than when she arrived. She now had on a perfectly fitting suit that allowed free movement but Michelle had managed to pull it in so it fit her new curves beautifully. Talking with the two tailors had also helped. They were right in saying that Sanji didn't have to try and fore changes upon herself. She could still cook, smoke, fight and defend the honour of women against scumbags so what was there to worry about? Mika had mentioned that its better that she went through the full transformation and not become an okama crossdresser. The assistant even went as far as to say, although it was fun trying to torture him in to making that change to okama, it really wasn't a good look for him.

As for her sexuality, Sanji still felt something when she thought about women. It didn't help that the island was occupied by hideous men and no women, so Sanji guessed she would have to work on that problem once she reached Sabaody Archipelago.

In irritation she flicked her hair out of her face whilst she headed back to her living quarters. She really needed a cigarette and unfortunately there wasn't any in the pockets of her newly fitted suit. The cook sighed and looked at her feet, she really wanted to get the new boots since the pink pumps were uncomfortable and clashed terribly with her outfit, but Sanji still had a couple of hours to kill before then.

Her stomach growled in protest, since she hadn't eaten since before her encounter with Ivankov. She'd have to go to the kitchen before it got busy for lunch, but first things first was for Sanji to get her beloved nicotine fix. However, Sanji wasn't expecting to be ambushed on the way to her apartment block.

"SSSAAAANJJIIII!" Two okama called as they ran up to the cook. "You look so pretty!"

Sanji froze in fear as they headed towards her. In her new form she couldn't tell if they were going to start harassing her or not.

"Ivan-sama really did a good job," the large man said to his friend. "Now you can finally stop resisting and join us."

"Come on," the other said as he grabbed Sanji's arm to drag her off course. "The girls are really excited to see you."

Sanji saw red. Just because she wasn't a man anymore did not mean that she wanted to be anywhere near the okama. She still found them repulsive and she knew full well what would happen if she joined these two okama. The freaks would use her as a living doll and that would be humiliating.

Sanji yanked her arm out of the man's grasp before kicking him in the abdomen. The winded man gasped before he flew into a nearby bush.

"Let me make this clear to you," she hissed at the other okama. "I do not want to go to one of your stupid little tea parties. I am not one of you and I never will be. You will never get me to change my mind. Now fuck off!"

The man nodded with his mouth agape and Sanji walked away.

"Always so feisty," she heard the okama say before he went to help his friend out of the bush. She scowled, they would never learn. To make matters worse, her foot was stinging after kicking the man with the flimsy pumps she was wearing.

The rest of the way the apartment more okama decided to try and push their luck with the temperamental cook and they met the same fate as the first two. By the time she had actually reached her room she was so wound up that she was desperate for a cigarette.

She found a full pocket and out it in her pocket whilst lighting the one on her lips. There would be no doubt that she would need another one soon.

Once she arrived at the communal kitchens Sanji started to make herself some brunch. Luckily the okama had finally gotten the message to leave her alone so she found the kitchen deserted, much to her delight.

She grabbed some eggs, cheese, ham, onion and pepper and set about making an omelette.

Within minutes she had prepared the pan and added the mixture. She waited for it to cook before putting some cheese on the top and putting the pan in the oven.

The smell was amazing and she waited in anticipation as she waited for the cheese to melt in the oven. With the oven at medium temperature and the grill on her omelette should be done in no time. Sanji went to the cupboards and pulled out some teabags. The green tea with a bit of lemon was just what Sanji needed. She poured the boiling water into her cup and prepared her tea and as se finished she pulled out her cooked omelette out of the oven.

She pulled up a chair and placed her lunch on the table. She sat down and found a recent newspaper and set to enjoy her meal. She was so relaxed in fact that Sanji didn't notice the time and she was running late for meeting up with Caroline.

She had finished her meal and was now sipping her tea whilst nearing the end of her newspaper. Apparently her soccer team from East Blue was doing very well as they were in the semi finals of the world Championship.

"Sanji-chwan? Where are you?" Caroline mocked from the doorway. The cook jumped and looked at the clock.

"Shit," she mumbled.

"Oh there you are Sanji-san," Carol smirked as she stuck her head through the doorway. "I thought you wanted some training?"

"Yeah, yeah," Sanji replied. "Sorry I just forgot the time. I'll see you in a second."

She quickly finished her tea and washed up the pots and pans, leaving them to drain on the side. Putting her socks and pumps back on she hastily went out of the door and headed to the training grounds where she found Caroline waiting with a few other okama that Sanji recognised.

"Well what are you waiting for," Carol said as Sanji stood idly staring at the man. "Put these on." He gave her the box with the boots in.

Like a child at Christmas she ripped the box open and kicked off her God-awful pumps. Lacing the boots up was an arduous task but it was worth it as they fit perfectly.

"Now before you get up there are a few things that you need to know," Carol said. "Firstly these heels are considerably higher than the ones we gave you to wear those two years ago when you arrived here. It may take time for you to get used to the change in height and Centre of Gravity."

Sanji nodded and liked at the heels. They were at least 7cm taller than those heels she was forced to wear as an okama. She had enough trouble keeping balance with them, let alone with these monster heels.

"Secondly there are a few feature that I feel you may want to know about," he added. "As I mentioned before the heels are reinforced with a titanium alloy. They also have titanium alloy toe caps and they have a little hidden blade in at the tip of each sole."

Sanji didn't like using knives for fighting; she believed that the only use for them was for cooking and not for hurting others. Therefore she was not that keen with having them in the tip of her boot.

"Isn't that a bit excessive?" Sanji inspected the titanium-capped toes of the boots. "I mean knives are the shitty swordsman's forte. Besides they are for cooking, not killing."

"This is a blade, not a knife," Carol grabbed Sanji's foot and activated the blade so it shot out of the sole. "This will just give your kicks a bit of extra power. Only for extreme situations."

"That's true," Sanji mused. The main reason she didn't use knives was because she didn't want to damage her hands, since a cook is useless without their hands. "Mr. Prince would approve." Secret compartments and gadgets, she had always been good at the whole re-con business. Even when Robin joined the crew and she was a master at infiltration and assassination. Carol smiled.

"Laurence did make them with some one who is good at reconnaissance. I think he's watched too many spy movies," he added.

"About that," Sanji calmly stated. "It does seem a bit too convenient that you just so happen to have a pair of boots that fit me exactly and suit my needs… in women form."

"I don't know what you are talking about Sanji-san. These are just something Laurence-san has been working on for the past few months," Caroline smiled cheekily.

"So you're saying that none of you shitty okama had this planned. None of you knew that I was going to be turned into a woman?"

"Yes."

"Bullshit," Sanji snarled as she jumped to her feet. She swayed slightly before walking straight to the okama leader and looking him straight in the eye. "You're just lucky I like these boots enough to ignore your little discrepancy. I'm just going to assume you were prepared, not planning my sex change. Now lets get training shall we? I've only got two weeks."

With a bit of hesitation Caroline straightened himself up. He feared that Sanji may have gone over the edge but the fact that Sanji has done nothing has also left him a little bit shaken. But he was not too worried since the next part was going to be fun.

"Welcome to your training Sanji-chan." Carol went to the okama and pulled out a horrid dress and a garish makeup bag. "Stage 1: RUN!"

Sanji looked at the transvestite and visibly flinched. Within moments they were running towards her with sinister looks on their face. One thing she did know is that she didn't want to get caught any time soon.

**The Next Day:**

Sanji woke up the next morning aching to the bones. The first afternoon of training had been brutal. She had been chased around the island by the crazy okama trying to use her as a doll that they could accessorise. Getting used to running in the shoes had been hard work. She had fallen over more times that she could count and she had been bowled over by the large okama more than one as well.

However Carol-san's methods, whilst unorthodox, did work in the end. By 8 that evening Sanji had all but mastered running in heels. Her calves and feet hurt. Her ankles were slightly swollen from where she kept falling over on them and she had bruises all over her body from all the times she had to fight off the okama when she was running too slow. They had pinned her down and plastered her in so much make up that Sanji looked like a clown when she finished. It had taken her hours to get it all off before she went to bed.

Sanji could now run, and consequently walk, fairly steadily in her new footwear. However today will be the main test, as she will be wearing them all day. Sanji's feet still ached from the day before so God knows how she will survive today.

She dragged herself out of bed at 6 a.m. Training started at 8 a.m. and Sanji needed to shower and work her shift for the apartment block's breakfast. The whole block took turns in making breakfast in the communal kitchen. Of all her luck it was Sanji's turn today and she really didn't want to rush it.

Sanji got out of bed ignoring her protesting muscles and went straight to the shower and turned it on. Taking off her pajamas she jumped in and relaxed as the hot water hit her body. She lathered up the soap and started to scrub herself down, but she hissed at the stinging sensation on her lower back. That didn't feel like a sports injury, but she carried on regardless. When scrubbing her shoulders her hand brushed on a foreign object on her neck and her hand flinched away.

"What the?" She dropped the sponge and put her hands around her neck to feel a choker that she doesn't remember putting on. She pulled at the clasp but it wouldn't budge. She jumped out of the shower and went to the full-length mirror to get a better look. It seemed to be a choker type necklace. It was a black ribbon that went one and a half times around her neck that was held in place by a round silver brooch at the front. The brooch had an engraving of the strawhat's jolly roger.

"How the heck did that get there," she said her reflection. "Shitty okama have been up to something again."

She would shout at Caroline when she went to training but first she needed to finish her shower and sort out breakfast. However, as she turned to head back, something caught her eye in the mirror. There was something on her back.

The girlish scream could be heard for miles around.

* * *

The vice emperor of Kammabakka Kingdom was sat enjoying a cup of tea with some of his friends when an angry blonde woman came storming into the kitchen. Her wet hair was hanging limply on her head, her feet were bare and her suit was disheveled as though she had put them on in haste.

"You shitty bastard!" Sanji sneered. "What have you done to me?"

Caroline smiled and sweetly and put his cup down calmly.

"I don't know what you are talking about Sanji-chan," he said. "Do you know what she's talking about girls?"

The okama sat at the table with him shook their heads innocently, but Sanji could tell that they were trying their hardest to suppress their laughter.

"Don't you dare pull that shit with me!" Sanji exclaimed.

"You sneak into my room in the middle of the night and do this to me!"

She turned her back to them and pulled up her shirt to show the tattoo that now covered her lower back, just above the trouser line on her hips. It was slightly red to show that it was still fresh and hadn't healed. When Sanji noticed it when she was in the shower and she realised that this is what caused her back to sting more than it should have. She was furious and rushed out of her room to find those responsible.

Caroline put on an expression of surprise as he exclaimed the tattoo. It was if the Strawhat's jolly roger with a ribbon behind it that crossed the width of her back. The ribbon had writing on it:

"_Property of the Straw-Hat Pirates and Emperio Ivankov."_

"Oh that," Caroline said. "I see you got your note."

"Excuse me?"

"Don't you remember? You were so concerned that your nakama wouldn't recognise you and I told you not to worry, that Iva-sama had told us to give you a note to give to Luffy-kun."

"When you said that I assumed that the shitty Emperor had written a letter to Luffy on a piece of PAPER," Sanji emphasized the last word.

"Well what would you do if you lost the note, or it got into the wrong hands?" Carol questioned.

"You had no right to do this!" Sanji all but screamed at the man. She knew that she should have sorted out the lock on her bedroom door sooner.

"Whether we had the right to do it or not Sanji-chan, you seem to be forgetting something," Caroline snapped. "Ivankov may have punished you for wrong-doing our people, but the rest of us hadn't been able to extract out revenge on you yet."

"Being transformed into a woman isn't punishment enough?"

"No, what you said deeply hurt all of us, but now you can consider us even."

"Somehow I don't believe that one bit!" Sanji scowled. "How the heck did you do then? I may be a deep sleeper but even I would notice a group of people tattooing me."

"Caroline's sinister grin reappeared.

"You must be mistaken Sanji-chwan," Sanji flinched. "You must be a heavy sleeper."

"You have had a rather traumatizing experience," a blonde okama with pigtails added. "That with all that running around would be enough to put anyone out like a light."

None of them would admit that they had drugged the cook's drink with a heavy sedative before she went to bed. It was a special drug that they developed to have no flavour so that someone with a pallet as delicate as Sanji's wouldn't notice.

Sanji fingered the choker anxiously at the surrounding okama. She was still extremely angry with them but the mischievous looks that they were giving each other were making her nervous.

"Don't be so angry Sanji-chan," Caroline added. "We gave you a pretty present as well." He gestured to the choker on her neck.

"I guess its okay," Sanji said nervously as she grabbed the silver brooch. "But did you have to make it so it wouldn't come off?"

Caroline shrugged and looked at her nakama.

"We didn't want you to loose it," he said. "The jeweller spent all day and night working on it, didn't you Jamie-chan?"

The brunette from the other end of the table nodded.

"Now if you've stopped having a tantrum I do believe that it is your turn to be making breakfast."

Sanji's fury rose up again at the okama's words.

You think I'm making you bastards breakfast after what you've done to me, you must be seriously delusional." She said as she straightened up her suit and grabbed a hand towel to remove some excess water from her hair.

"If you don't make us breakfast then we won't train you," Caroline threatened.

"Like you were training me," Sanji scoffed. "You just did what you've been doing to me for the past two years. You'll have to do better than that."

"Fine, but if you don't finish your training I have the authority to not give you a boat, under the orders of Ivan-sama."

"You wouldn't dare," Sanji narrowed her eyes at the okama and sneered.

"Try me."

"Sanji couldn't believe it. She was being blackmailed by the people who just tattooed her in her sleep. She didn't want to cook for these men, but if they wouldn't take her back to Sabaody how would she get back to her nakama? She couldn't let her crew down so she had no choice but to suck it up and do as the okama wanted.

"Fine," she conceded. "But I will get you back for this."

"We look forward to it, don't we girls?"

"Yes Carol-sama," the crowd chorused in a sickly tone.

"I've got to sort out myself out before I cook for you shitty okama," she pointed to her bare feet. "You'll just have to wait a bit."

As Sanji made it back to her room she felt utterly terrible. Once again her stupid female hormones were playing up and she wanted to cry her eyes out again. She did not want to go back down to the kitchen just to have the shitty-okama watch her every move like they would a maid.

The cook didn't know how she was going to face her nakama now. As if the gender change wasn't embarrassing enough, but to have a permanent tattoo claiming her as property was just humiliating.

Maybe she could get Chopper to remove it before anyone else found out about it.

* * *

**Quick Note: **Next time Sanji arrives back at Sabaody Archipegalo.


	4. Chapter 4

**17th September 2011  
**

**Summary:**

Sanji never kept it a secret how much he disliked the okama he was stuck with for 2 years. But he learns the hard way that one shouldn't anger Emporio Ivankov. You could end up experiencing some unfortunate changes.

**WARNING: **Contains spoilers from chapter 598 onwards! Rated for Sanji's bad language.**  
**

**Disclaimer:**

All characters belong to respective owners. This is non-profit fan-based story.

**Notes:**

-A quick Thank-You for all the reviews so far and a special thanks to Xarciel for pointing out the mistakes that I made in the last chapter, it is greatly appreciated. These should all be fixed and the updated chapter has been uploaded. Thank-You!

-This chapter was probably my most difficult so far, sorry for the wait. The next few should not have such a long wait between them.

-Also I thought I better mention that this story is going to be about 6 chapters long, but it will also have an epilogue and a couple post-fic scenes.

**Anyways on with the show!**

* * *

**Chapter 4:**

Sanji took a deep breath of sea air as she stood against the railing of the boat as she watched Sabaody Archipelago grow closer. Her two years of living hell was finally over and she couldn't be happier, if it wasn't for the fact that she was extremely nervous about meeting up with the crew in her new form.

Whist she was still furious at the okama and Caroline for branding her in her sleep, she managed to keep calm enough around them for her training sessions. Most of the training sessions started with Sanji running in terror from the transvestites and drag queens, but she often did something different in the afternoon. The blonde was happy to find out her strength and skill had not been affected by the transformation. She often spent her afternoons sparring with one or more of the newkama-kenpo masters, so she managed to refine her fighting skills with the new shoes. To her joy she also managed to develop two new moves in the two-week training period.

Once they had finally docked Sanji's nervousness had reached an all time high. She looked at the large trunk she had all her belongings in and sighed. She might as well get it over with and lugged the trunk on its side and pulled its handle, glad that it had wheels. Now matter how strong she had gotten she was not willing to carry it any distance.

It didn't help that Michelle had filled it to the brim. The day that she was set to leave Sanji had found the trunk at the foot of her bed with a note:

"_Sanji-chan,_

_I took the liberty of adjusting all the other suits in your wardrobe. There are also some other things that I believe would look fabulous on you. I'd recommend the skirts, as they will do wonders for your figure._

_Lots of Love_

_Michelle._

_P.S. Mika says that you can keep the trunk. It is his gift to you."_

Sanji, while slightly annoyed that Michelle had ignored his requests, was extremely touched by the gifts. The trunk was beautifully crafted with a leather exterior and a Celtic tree design along the edges. The inside was amazing. It was lined with suede leather and had many different compartments. There was a compartment for the shoes that she had been given by Caroline. The okama had gone all out and had also given her some flat pumps, some thick winter boots, a formal pair of heels and a black pair of heels that had a simple strap over the top of the foot. All of them had the titanium alloy reinforcements that her beloved boots had.

There was a compartment for all her personal belongings, which were mainly her cigarettes and new kitchen knives.

The largest compartment had all the clothing that Michelle had given her. The wardrobe had consisted of all her modified suits including some extra that the tailor had made. There were also a couple of short black skirts and a dress to go with the suits, but Sanji was still very weary of them. It helped that Michelle had added a few pairs of biking shorts to go under the skirts for when she was fighting so that she didn't show her underwear when fighting, but she still was embarrassed to wear something so alien to her. There were jeans, jogging suits, t-shirts, pleated skirt, shorts and even a couple formal gowns in the trunk for her. All were hand made by Michelle and Mika. There was also a nice beige tartan coat that Sanji loved, it was double breasted and was beautifully cut with thick buttoned cuffs at the wrists. It joined a thicker fur lined coat that Sanji would need if they entered another winter island like Chopper's.

Sanji was still refusing to wear anything other than her suits at the moment, as she believed it was one of the only things she could keep of her old self. She wouldn't even wear the jeans and t-shirts at the moment. Currently she was wearing one of Michelle's suits, much to the okama's displeasure. She was wearing a red button up shirt that had three quarter length sleeves that ended in unbuttoned cuffs just past her elbow. She was wearing a black double-breasted waistcoat over the top of the red shirt and black fitted trousers that showed her long legs perfectly. The boots she was initially given to by Caroline were on her feet and they were laced up with red laces that matched her shirt. She was quite happy with this, suits were her trademark and that would never change.

However this did not stop the okama insisting that she wore makeup. She had managed to get away with minimal damage and was currently wearing light brown mascara and a very natural coloured lip-gloss. They had insisted on more and Sanji had to kick them out of her room before they gave up. They still didn't seem to understand that, although she was a woman, she did not want to look like the creepy okama and every self-respecting woman would agree with her. In an attempt to get her long hair out of her face she had tried to pin it behind her ear. It still covered her eye, but she had a feeling it would be getting in the way all too soon.

Overall Sanji believed that she might have finally gotten used to being a woman. She could now look at herself in the mirror without blushing. She had almost gotten used to the mood swings; it helped that she had discovered the joy of chocolate. She had always been told about the greatness of the stuff by Nami and Vivi, but she hadn't realised what the big deal was until she was given some during a major rampage. The endorphins had such a great calming effect on her that it became a new obsession. However due to her addictive nature she now very rarely left anywhere without a bar joining her cigarettes in her pocket.

She took a deep breath and stepped out of the boat with the okama right behind. As soon as she hit solid ground she was filled with the joy, so much so that the fear was being suppressed for the time being.

The cook had barely moved a couple of metres when she saw the first woman resident. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the beautiful woman and she could not help but to squeal in delight. Not long after she saw a man walk past and she blushed. NORMAL men did look more appealing at the moment but then again she was getting all warm and fuzzy when she looked at NORMAL women as well.

"_Oh well,"_ Sanji thought. _"Who cares I'm free!" _

"Women! Men! Normal people!" She exclaimed as she ran towards in joy.

The locals looked a bit perturbed by the woman that was running towards them with such joy. They slowly began to back away and Sanji frowned, before realising what she was doing and stopping in her tracks. Her pale face grew red from embarrassment and to make matters worse a very attractive man decided to walk by the cook and she had to grab her face to hold off the impending nosebleed.

"Shit," she said as an attractive woman walked past and her body reacted the same as when the man went by. "I can't be doing this all the time." She wiped her face and grabbed a cigarette from her waistcoat pocket and lit it, hoping that the nicotine would calm her nerves. She would have to go by this very slowly and carefully and she took hold of her trunk and headed off.

"Good luck Sanji-chan!" One of the okama screamed out from behind her. Their very presence was making the general public vacate the area in fear. "We'll miss our little games."

"Well I for one will not," Sanji cringed. "Since they weren't games, I'm sure you'll have someone else to torture when another unsuspecting man sets foot on that shitty island!"

"Such a tease Sanji-chan!"

"Whatever! Thanks for the boat and stuff, but tell Iva and Caroline that I will get you back for what they have done."

The okama got closer and Sanji found herself surrounded.

"Aww, you wouldn't do that," one said.

"Want to bet?" Sanji asked.

"Nope," he said and without warning the blonde cook was pulled into the arms of an okama that was behind her.

"I'm going to miss you Sanji-san," he said, before giving her a quick peck on the cheek.

Sanji shivered violently and threw the man off.

"What! Eww! This is what a mean," the repulsed cook sneered. "You have no sense of personal space!"

She angrily pushed her way through the crowd and turned back to them.

"So long!" she cried. "I'll send the bill to you for my therapy," and with that last word she stomped off. Shivering in repulsion she rubbed at her face, trying to remove the remnants of the goodbye hug and kiss whilst muttering curses under her breath. However it wasn't long before she realised that she was once again around normal people. The urge to flirt with everyone in sight began to resurface and Sanji became aware that the walk to Shakky's was going to be a long one.

The walk was quite difficult. Whenever Sanji saw anyone attractive she immediately began to swoon. It didn't matter whether it was a man or a woman the reflex to flirt like a madman began to overpower her. It took her at least two hours to try and traverse through the crowd, but by time she had reached Shakky's bar she had nearly managed to condition herself to not blow up at anyone that caught her eye. She had managed to freak out a lot of people on her journey but she didn't care.

If she knew that being around the okama freaks would have had this kind of effect on her, she would have tried to escape that hellhole sooner. It was just another thing that she had to pay them back for.

Shakky's Rip Off Bar had not changed one bit in Sanji's two-year absence. She cautiously opened the door to find Shakky and Rayleigh talking with one another in the corner and the flying fish riders were in the other corner nursing their wounds.

"Ahh it looks like you owe me 100 belli Ray-san," Sanji heard Shakky speak up. Her gaze left Duval's crew and Sanji turned back towards the corner to find the two sets of eyes staring at her.

"Yeah, but who would have thought that he would have let Iva do that to him," Rayleigh replied.

Once Sanji realised that they were talking about her she scowled.

"You bet on me turning into a woman?" She was horrified, it seemed that she had misjudged Shakky's character. She didn't seem the type to do something like this.

"Don't worry Sanji-san," Shakky giggled slightly. "It was all in good fun."

The truth was when Rayleigh told the barkeep where all the strawhat's had gone, they began to speculate what may happen to each crewmember. When Sanji's name came up Rayleigh was very amused and insisted that the okama would turn him to the 'dark side' before the two years were up. Shakky disagreed and said that Sanji was too much of a ladies man to become like them. She argued that Sanji was more likely to be forcibly transformed by Iva's devil-fruit powers than willingly convert.

Of course this lead to a very heated discussion and they made a wager on Sanji's condition upon the crew's return.

"Darn it," Rayleigh said. "I was positive the okama would have converted you to their way."

"Shut it Rayleigh, you have no idea what hell I've been thorough!" Sanji sneered.

"Your probably right," Rayleigh teased. "But who am I to judge. I've never actually met a sane person who was willingly changed into a woman."

"I did not willingly let this happen to me!" Sanji fumed. "I was attacked by that shitty okama queen and he won't turn me back."

"Oh stop teasing Sanji, Ray-san," Shakky said, as she turned to smile at Sanji. "Well all know what Ivankov can be like. I'm sure Sanji didn't have anything to do with this."

Sanji frowned, but was grateful that Shakky had taken her side. Although she was sill annoyed that she had bet with Silvers in the first place.

"Just to let you know Sanji-san, I said to Ray-san that you'd not come back as an okama. That means if you came back normal I still would have won," Shakky added triumphantly. "He made a fools bet really."

The cook crossed her arms and sighed.

"Do you want a drink?" The bar owner said as she left Rayleigh's side and went behind the bar.

"Yes please," Sanji was very grateful and moved from the doorway to sit on a barstool. "I think I could do with something strong."

"Can do," Shakky replied as she pulled out a glass and a bottle of sàke.

"So what's the situation?" Sanji said trying to move the conversation from herself. "You were with Luffy when he sent us that message weren't you Rayleigh-san?"

"Yes I was," Rayleigh said as he pulled out a newspaper. "I am quite surprised that all of you got the message."

"Really? Everyone got the message?"

"Yes, you're the seventh back," Shakky said. "Since Luffy left the message he should know to be back soon and I'm sure Nico Robin worked it out. They are the only ones not back yet."

Sanji smiled dreamily, of course Robin would have worked it out, she is the smartest person Sanji knows.

"Wow I wonder where everyone is?" the cook mused. She couldn't wait to meet up with her nakama but she wouldn't actively seek them out just yet.

"They are around," Shakky smiled, giving Sanji her drink. "It wouldn't surprise me if Luffy and Robin were on the island as well."

"You still haven't told me why Luffy delayed the reunion," Sanji took a sip out of her glass.

"I had to train the boy for the new world," Silvers said. "And I knew that you all had been sent to places to help you gain strength…"

"What!" Sanji interrupted. "I was in hell, couldn't I have been sent somewhere else?"

"You can't deny that you've gotten stronger with the okama, Sanji," Shakky said.

Sanji choked on her drink and went to retort at the barkeep before stopping. She sat staring angrily opening her mouth and then closing it again as if trying to find an answer to Shakky's question.

"Well I think that's your answer right there," Rayleigh smiled.

"So when did everyone start arriving?" Sanji asked, trying to divert the conversation back to her nakama.

"Well Roronoa arrived about 2 weeks ago," Shakky said with a slight smirk at Sanji's face. The cook was sat staring in disbelief, with her mouth agape.

"You cannot be serious," the blonde said.

"No I'm serious, although I think he had help getting back."

Sanji sighed in relief; maybe hell hadn't quite frozen over just yet.

"Franky arrived 10 days ago, then Nami," Sanji blushed at the thought of the navigator. "Then Usopp 3 days ago. I believe the Doctor is looking for you all. He arrived yesterday and Brook arrived for a concert this morning."

"Okay," Sanji smiled warmly. She was happy to hear that everyone seemed to be accounted for. Furthermore it was a relief that her precious Nami-san had gotten back safely. Sanji wouldn't know what to do if anything happened to her. Yet it was slightly worrying that Robin wasn't back yet. She didn't know why, the archeologist could take care of herself. She was, however, slightly concerned that the little doctor was wandering around Sabaody on his own with all these dangerous pirates about. She could only hope that he had learnt to take care of himself during their absence.

"When is Luffy back?" She questioned.

"I do believe he should be back today," Rayleigh said. "That is if he hasn't been delayed."

"Heh," Sanji took a sip of her drink. "Knowing Luffy, that is a great possibility. Unless he has changed because of all your training."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Rayleigh laughed form his newspaper. "I don't think Luffy would change too much."

"True," Sanji said. "So how strong is Luffy now?"

"I don't know. He finished training six months ago. Who knows how he's developed since then."

"So he's probably really strong…" She trailed off as she thought about her captain. Her mind wandered to how much the boy had changed. She smiled dreamily when she thought about his carefree smile and his tousled hair and his well-defined torso…

"Oh Dear God," she abruptly stopped daydreaming. "Why the heck am I thinking about Luffy like that? Its Luffy for crying out loud." She paused in horror, especially when she noticed Shakky smiling at her coyly. She cursed her feminine hormones once again as she fought the rising blush on her cheeks. Of all the times for it to affect her, but for when she was thinking of her captain, how embarrassing.

"So," Sanji said looking at her watch. "I really should really get my food supplies. What I came here for was to find out where the Sunny is docked."

With an arched eyebrow Shakky answered. "The Sunny is docked at Grove 17. Franky should be there. He went straight to your ship to do some modifications. Ray-san has finished the coating."

"Its nice to hear that the Sunny is okay. Franky would not have been happy if anything happened to it." Sanji smiled.

"Well you have these guys to thank for that," Shakky nodded towards the other people in the room. Sanji jumped, she had forgotten that Duval and his men were also here. She had been so caught up arguing with Shakky and Rayleigh that they had slipped her mind.

"I'm sorry I forgot you guys were here," Sanji said. "Thanks for guarding the Sunny for us."

The cook turned to smile at the riders but she was faced with a group of speechless men. They all look pretty beat up; especially Duval and they were all staring at her with slack jaws.

"Hey have you shitty fish riders been like that since I walked in?" Sanji now knew why she hadn't noticed them. She had managed to stun the usually loud and boisterous group to silence.

"Oi?" Sanji repeated.

"Is that you Master Black Leg?" One of Duval's subordinates asked.

"Where have you been for the last 10 minutes?" Sanji sarcastically asked.

"What have they done to you?" another whimpered.

"Well isn't it obvious?" the exasperated cook asked, her patience was wearing thin. These guys really annoyed her and she couldn't be bothered to try and put up with them right now.

"Oh what a tragedy!" Duval shouted from his sick bed. He ripped his casts from their supports and turned to the cook. "How could something so horrible happen to our saviour? To have your identity ripped from you in a flash. I feel your pain. And to go through it all alone must have been hard."

Tears were now streaming freely down their faces and Sanji put her head in her hands.

"Oh bother," she said as she raised her head. "Look I've nearly gotten over it. Really I'm fine."

However this was a bad move. It only made the gang cry even louder and most of Duval's men came running towards her.

"Sanji-sama!" They wailed as they all went to hug the blonde. The bandits suddenly surrounded Sanji as they went to hug her.

"Oi get off shitty fishes," she said as she tried to push them off, but they only held on tighter. One man in particular shoved his head between her breasts with a perverted grin on his face.

Sanji just lost it.

Her eyes filled with fire as she looked down at the man with pure fury. Upon realising his mistake most of the riders let go and backed off. However the pervert didn't get very far before being forcibly kicked into the wall.

"The next of you shitty bastards who decides to push his luck will get a worse fate." She sneered, blowing a rogue strand of hair out of her face. "Let that be your warning."

"Yes Ma'am," they whimpered. Sanji grinned before lighting another cigarette.

"Good." She finished her drink grabbed her trunk and went to the door. "Thank you for your help Shakky-san."

She walked out of the bar and headed for the Thousand Sunny. She should have known one of those no good bandits would try something like that. The fury had blinded her to all the beauties that have otherwise slowed her down and she marched angrily past everyone. It made her journey to the Sunny much quicker than the one to Shakky's Rip Off Bar.

By the time the Thousand Sunny had gotten into view her anger had died down and she was hit with a wave of nostalgia. It was good to be home…

* * *

It had been about three hours ago that Franky had sent Usopp to get furl for the ship and the cyborg had finished doing his modifications to the Thousand Sunny. He'd finished sorting the new additions to the docking system and he'd also sorted out the doors so that he could now fit through them easier. He'd really not thought about that when he made his new body but the problem was solved fairly quickly.

He went to the stockroom to get himself a cola and relax a bit. The room was filled to the brim with cola bottles but they still lacked the large barrels that were needed to fuel the Sunny's Coup de Burst and weapons. Usopp should be back with them soon.

Once he had got out of the stock room he went back up to the deck to keep watch. He noticed that someone was up on the shore looking down and he frowned. From this distance it looked like it could be the cook, but there was something odd about the figure.

"Oi Franky," the person said. "Don't you think you went a bit overboard with the modifications?"

The cyborg's eyebrows drew together in confusion. It kind of sounded like Sanji but why on Earth would he grow his hair out so long. Even Franky knows that it would get in the way of Sanji's cooking and his fighting style.

"No way, Curly-Cook," Franky said, assuming that this person was the cook. "There is no way that my modifications could be any less SUPA!" The man finished with his trademark 'Super' pose.

"Yeah Yeah," the person jumped down, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke behind them. The blonde landed very delicately on her knees and she placed her luggage down safely. "Its good to see you Franky."

As the person straightened up and looked at the cyborg, Franky's jaw dropped and he stood gaping at the cook. He flicked his sunglasses up to get a better look, eyes showing nothing but disbelief at what he was seeing.

Sanji had been expecting a louder reaction from the shipwright, but even so, she was getting very uncomfortable as Franky kept staring.

"Shut that mouth or I'll shut it for you, you shitty cyborg," she sneered. "And stop staring, it's rude."

Franky jumped and his sunglasses fell back into place.

"Gods Curley-Cook, what the heck happened to you?"

Sanji grimaced and exhaled her cigarette smoke.

"Lets just say I've been in a living hell and then I had an altercation with a shitty devil fruit user," she said to the shipwright.

He was still stood on the same spot looking intently at Sanji.

"Not SUPA," he muttered. "Well on my head I'll find whoever did this to you and to turn you back." Franky began to well up. "I mean to do that is inhuman." He grabbed Sanji and bawled into her shoulder. The blonde was taken aback and tried to pat him on the back for comfort, only she couldn't reach that far.

"Yeah well the shitty okama won't turn me back so I'm stuck like this, but I will get my revenge eventually," she sighed. The revenge would have to be perfect. It would take hours of planning, maybe she could ask Nami-san what to do when she meets up with the rest of the crew. The navigator did always have the talent for getting her revenge on the people that pissed her off. "Have you stocked up the food yet?"

However Sanji was being ignored as Franky kept crying over Sanji's lost manhood.

"Hey are you listening to me shitty cyborg?"

Nothing.

"Franky?" The shipwright kept weeping.

"Oi!" Sanji screamed as she kicked Franky in the head. "Shut it!"

Franky stopped instantly looking a bit dazed before grinning slightly.

"Ow, you can still pack a good kick Sanji-sis."

"Of course, now if you've stopped acting like an idiot, have you stocked up on food yet?"

"No I wouldn't dare," Franky replied. "That's your area."

"Good because I just came to drop off my stuff and head to the market."

"Cool," Franky replied. "Usopp's just gone to get some fuel, and Nami apparently hit the shops so keep an eye out for them. Do they know yet?"

"No and you are not going to tell them either," she ordered. "I want to tell them myself, I just don't know how."

"Well I guess you'll just have to take it as it comes," Franky grinned. "Here." He gave her a portable DenDen Mushi.

"So what number are you?" The cyborg questioned.

"I'm the seventh," Sanji said. "I still can't believe that the shitty Marimo got here first."

"Yeah well I think he had help," Franky laughed. Sanji remembered that they had said the same at Shakky's. "They must have left early in case swordsman-bro got them lost."

Sanji sniggered, that sounded about right.

"Okay I'll just put this in the kitchen for now," the blonde dragged her trunk. She couldn't put her stuff in the men's quarters now, yet she was far too embarrassed to put it in Robin and Nami's room. She stuffed it under the counter in her kitchen and came back out to meet Franky.

"I shouldn't be long, but if Luffy appears just ring," she said.

"Yeah I'll see you in a bit."

"See ya," she jumped off the shore and looked over her shoulder. "Remember no telling anyone."

"Yes Ma'am," he mocked saluted at the blonde. Sanji smiled and waved as she headed off.

* * *

**Quick note:** Next Time: Encounters with familiar faces... Nakama or not?


	5. Chapter 5

**24th September 2011  
**

**Summary:**

Sanji never kept it a secret how much he disliked the okama he was stuck with for 2 years. But he learns the hard way that one shouldn't anger Emporio Ivankov. You could end up experiencing some unfortunate changes.

**WARNING: **Contains spoilers from chapter 598 (Return to Saboady Arc) onwards! Rated for Sanji's bad language.**  
**

**Disclaimer:**

All characters belong to respective owners. This is non-profit fan-based story.

**Notes:**

-Thank-you for the reviews on the last chapter.

-This is the penultimate chapter, but not to worry I still have the epilogue and deleted scenes after that!

**On with the chapter!  
**

* * *

**Chapter 5:**

Meeting up with Franky wasn't as bad as Sanji had expected. Granted he went through some pretty extreme changes himself, but his modifications were made by choice. Unlike Sanji.

"_Oh well that's one crew member out of the way,"_ she thought to herself as she walked through the market. She had already brought quite a lot of supplies. She had managed to get enough meat that would last a normal crew for about a month and it was all packed up in the bubbles that Sabaody have so handy. It meant that she wasn't so burdened carrying so many bags herself. She did have a couple of bags in her hand that were used as weights for the other bags. One was full of new spices that she needed to replace. The ones in the Sunny would have gone off in the two years that she was away. She had also stocked up on chocolate to feed her small addiction she had developed since the change.

So that just left booze, fruit and vegetables and cigarettes, maybe some fish. She was lucky that Franky had already replenished the water stocks along with his cola or she would have to carry that as well. Good thing she could get some more of the bubbles on a string to carry the heavy stuff.

The market place was very busy and full of pirates. The death of Whitebeard had really caused trouble in the pirate world. Especially since the pirate lord had confirmed the existence of the one piece. Now everyone believes that they have a chance for the glory of becoming the pirate king. It had been two years and the weaker pirates were starting to filter through the first part of the red line. She really didn't like these pirates, they were nothing more than common criminals with no class and she hated to be associated with them.

"Bottom-feeders," Sanji scowled as she watched some pirates causing havoc at a nearby stall. The poor woman was having trouble keeping the situation under control as they looted in broad daylight. Sanji was about to go over herself before she saw the husband arrive and kick them out. It wasn't long before everything was sorted out.

"Huh," the blonde mused in surprise, as she watched the man ward off the pirates. "It looks like the locals had to get a bit tougher with all these scumbags causing trouble."

She headed out of the grove, towards the next market in grove 43 and the path was just as hectic. She tried her hardest to avoid the crowds but it was in vain, and it wasn't long before she bumped into someone.

"Sorry," Sanji absentmindedly carried down the path. Yet it was just Sanji's luck to have bumped into one of the scumbag pirates that Sanji hated. Apparently her apology was not enough. The blonde was grabbed on the arm and pulled back roughly.

"You should watch were your going honey," the pirate said. She sneered in disgust at the slimy tome in his voice. "There are a lot of dangerous men at Shabody at the moment."

Sanji's eye twitched as she turned to face the man. She really didn't have the time to be held up by this shithead. If her true identity was found out because of his she would not be pleased.

"_Easy Girl,"_ she thought. _"Time to play the defenseless female act and maybe he'll piss off."_

"I'm sorry sir," she smiled sweetly when she finally faced him. "But pirates or not I still have to finish my shopping."

The man sneered and tightened his grip on the cook's arm.

"I don't think you understand me. There are a lot of dangerous men that a woman like you could fall prey to."

Once again her visible eye twitched in irritation, luckily the man didn't notice.

"Look sir I really need to get going." Sanji pulled on her arm making the man sneer.

"Do you realise who you are talking to?"

Sanji paused she hadn't even got a proper look at him yet; she had kept her head down so the man couldn't a good look at her face. She was lucky her long hair covered the curl of her eyebrow since that was one of her main identifiable features on her wanted poster. Eventually she looked up at the man and gasped. The man was skinny with frizzy blonde hair that that been parted to show his right eye and he had a curly eyebrow that mimicked hers very well.

She realised that this man was making a poor attempt of being Black-leg Sanji. Patience was wearing thin and she didn't think she could hold her temper. How very dare he! But she still kept up her front pulled a confused look, which made the man sneer.

"Don't play dumb with me," he snarled as he grabbed her choker that hat the straw-hat's emblem on it. It was the one that the okama forced onto her when she got her tattoo. "Why would you have this if you don't know a member of the Straw-hat crew?"

"This just a trinket I bought the other day."

"Don't lie to me, of course you know about the Strawhat pirates."

"Yes well I may recognise you if you were member of the Strawhat crew, which you are not," Sanji replied as calmly as possible. "Now if you would excuse me, I have to go."

Sanji forcefully pulled her arm out of the man's grasp and turned to leave.

"I'm Black-Leg Sanji!" The man exclaimed.

"I don't think so," she told him as she started to walk away in disgust.

The cook took a deep breath to calm herself down; the pirate was drawing unwanted attention and she needed to get away before it got out of hand. Yet he wasn't making it easy and the cook was close to loosing her temper. Not only was this man doing a poor impersonation of her from two years ago, but the fact that there was Straw-hat impersonators around would cause trouble with the reunion of his crew. If the marines found out there would be a lot of trouble for the both fake and real crews.

The man was clueless to Sanji's internal struggle and was not happy with her dismissing him in such a manner. He jumped at her and grabbed the closest thing to him, which happened to be her long hair, and pulled her back once again.

That was boiling point for the cook. He actually had the nerve to manhandle her and pull at her hair like a common tramp.

"Now listen here you bitch," he snarled as he attempted to pull her closer and wrapped his arm around her shoulders to whisper in her ear. "You are coming with…" He was interrupted when a heel met his head. In blind fury Sanji spun around kicked the man onto the floor with kick.

With one of her heels holding the man down she pulled out her cigarettes and lit one. After taking a couple of drags had had calmed down enough to talk in coherent sentences. The man was also starting to wake up, which was lucky for her.

She removed her boot from his back and proceeded to dig the heel into his hand. A crowd was begging to gather but she was past caring now.

"Now listen here you crappy son of a bitch!" Sanji snarled. "A proper gentleman _NEVER_ treats a lady like that. I tried being polite but you had to act like the bottom feeding scum that you are and start manhandling someone who just accidentally bumped into you. Oh and also don't you think that Black-Leg Sanji would have been able to dodge a kick like that? I mean it was pretty basic."

"Why you bitch!" He tried to get up.

Sanji scowled and dug her heel further into the imposter's hand.

"What did I say about being a gentleman?"

"I'll get you for this!" he gasped.

"Oh I look forward to it shithead," she replied as she finished her cigarette and bent down to stub it out on his hand. The man yelled as it left a small burn on his knuckles. "But if I ever see you treat a woman like that again I assure you I won't be as lenient on you as I have this time."

Mr. Imposter felt Sanji take her foot off his hand and he tried to get on his feet to attack. However before he could even stand up Sanji booted him right in the face and he was sent flying in the other direction, out of sight.

"Fucking bastard," she muttered under her breath. She peered in the direction the imposter went to see if he was still around, but he was long gone. After straightening her clothes up and she once again pushed her hair out of he face.

That was it! The hair had to go. It was bad enough that it always got in the way but for that sleazebag to go and grab it like that was the last straw. She didn't even know why it had decided to grow so long after the transformation anyway. Its not that it got in the way of her eye, she was used to that, but that fact that it was so long that it kept getting in the way of the rest of her face. Caroline had said something about how it has grown to what it would be like if Sanji had been female all her life, but that was the biggest load of bullshit she had ever heard. It just wasn't practical for her profession. The only reason Sanji hadn't cut it of after the first training session was because Mika had mentioned that it would be useful for keeping a low profile once she had arrived back at Sabaody Archipelago. Since everyone was staring, it really didn't matter now anyway.

In pure frustration the cook rummaged around in her pockets as though looking for a cigarette, but instead she pulled out chocolate bar and began to eat it. She picked up her bags that were tied up to the shopping in the bubble bags and set off to find a hairdressing salon.

Luckily since the Grove was one of the main commercial areas on the whole Mangrove Island, there were many salons for her to choose from. She found one instantly and went straight in.

Little did she know was that she was being watched from afar by a shadowy figure.

~~~~xXx~~~~

"So madam," the young man said as Sanji sat on the hairdresser's chair. "What do you want doing today?"

"I want it all off," she told him impatiently.

"Anything in particular?"

"I think I can trust you to find something suitable," she said. The stylist looked at her apprehensively, he had never been given such creative freedom.

"Are you sure?"

Sanji looked the man in the eye,

"Please I don't know what I want, I just need it shorter."

"Yes ma'am."

~~~~xXx~~~~

Sanji left the salon with a new spring in her step. The stylist had done a fantastic job. Her hair was now shoulder length and covering her right eye like before, so it showed the eyebrow that curled towards the centre of her face. The man had styled and layered it so it was like a spiky bob (or like a long pixie type hairstyle). It was just different enough from her hairstyle from when she was a man and it didn't get in the way anymore. Finally Sanji was starting to feel like her old self again, despite the obvious differences of course.

The cook had barely got out of the salon before she was stopped by an all too familiar voice.

"Well cook-san, now I know why Ivankov-san had to leave his island in such a hurry."

The blonde spun around.

"Robin-chwan?" she said pitifully before pausing in embarrassment. The woman was just as beautiful as Sanji remembered. Her hair had grown out and she was wearing a very tight-topped outfit that made Sanji blush.

"Come on," Robin said and she grabbed Sanji's arm, making her face redden even more. "I can't be out in the pen for long."

She was dragged out of the market and the two women stood in the shadows in a nearby alley.

"Oh Robin-chan!" Sanji exclaimed as she cheekily wrapped her arms around the archeologist. "You look so beautiful. I'm so happy to see you. It's been awful. You have no idea what I've been through."

"I can imagine," Robin answered as she awkwardly patted the cook on the back.

"I've been so worried that no-one would recognise men and that I will not be accepted back onto the crew!" Sanji added in panic as she let go of Robin. "They said they were trying to help me when they tattooed me in my sleep and they still tried to make me one of them. I'm so confus…"

Sanji was interrupted as Robin put a hand over Sanji's mouth and pushed them further into the shadows. A lone marine officer walked past and Sanji froze. He didn't look like he was up to much but he did have Robin's wanted poster in his hand so they kept as still as possible until they were sure he was gone.

Now that Sanji had begun to calm down Robin finally released her. She looked at the archeologist curiously. Robin seemed on edge.

"Whats wrong Robin-chan?" Sanji asked. "Is there someone after you?"

"I've had the marines after me since I left for Sabaody about 2 weeks ago. They seem to have tracked me here and now I can barely move out in the open."

"But it only took 1 week by boat to leave from were Kuma sent me!"

"I was on an island that was saved by the revolutionaries. I've been at their base since then. Just before I left Emperor-san arrived for a meeting with Dragon-sama and he was over a day early as thought he was trying to escape something. It wasn't long when one of the okamas mentioned you, saying you were the reason he made haste, but I have never would have believed that this had happened," Robin giggled lightly. "Whatever did you do to make Emperor-san do this to you?"

Sanji frowned at Robin and looked at her feet in embarrassment.

"I don't know. I had just finished my training and I was talking to myself. That shitty okama heard me and the next thing I know I had said something I shouldn't have and he attacked me. By the time I had gotten over the shock he was long gone and had left me 2 weeks to get used to this," she gestured to he body. "Before I had to leave and come here."

"Well Cook-san," Robin said as she put her hands on Sanji's shoulder. "Can you imagine what that impersonator will think when he realises that you are the real Black-Leg Sanji. I believe it would be quite amusing."

The two women paused before Sanji giggled cheekily and Robin followed suit not long after.

"You saw that?" Sanji referred to the encounter that she had with the fake before she went to the salon. Robin nodded.

"Well I guess I won't have to hold back anymore, there no point in trying to be nice to that shitty impersonator."

"I wouldn't expect any less Sanji-chan," Robin smiled.

"Actually I was quite surprised to recognise you with such long hair, but you have to be rather dim not to realise that it was you," Robin paused. "Although I'm still quite glad you went and got it cut, shorter hair does suit you better."

"How on earth do you cope?" Sanji asked. "Having such long hair all the time?"

"Well not all of us insist on having an eye covered at all times. Or course yours is going to get in the way," giggled Robin.

"Hey you would to if you had freaky asymmetrical eyebrows like I do!"

"If you say so Cook-san," Robin continued on giggling.

They were interrupted as a large group of marines ran past the alleyway. Robin and Sanji froze in the shadows.

"There has been a sighting of Nico Robin at Grove 47 with other members of the strawhat crew." A Marine's DenDen Mushi reported. They all disappeared quickly towards the grove in question.

"Been there yet?" Sanji asked as the Marines were finally out of earshot. She pulled out another cigarette and lit it with a match and Robin shook her head. "With any luck you also have a fake wandering around and the marines are stupid enough to think she is you."

"One can only hope."

"Robin-chan," Sanji started after a long pause. "Have you seen anyone else yet?"

"No I've only been seen Shakky at the bar. I was planning on going straight to the ship an meeting everyone there. I didn't expect to run across you at all and I'll admit I was quite surprised. I think I also caught a glimpse of Swordsman-san as well but I can't be sure."

"Humph!" Sanji scowled. "He is around somewhere. Shakky said he got here first and Franky said he's gone off wondering because he was bored. Probably lost."

"So you have seen Franky-san," Robin smiled.

"Yeah I dropped stuff off at the ship before going food shopping. He's been sorting out the ship," Sanji said stiffly. "It'll probably be best if you go straight there."

"I agree," Robin but sank further into the shadows.

"What am I going to do Robin-chan," Sanji repeated calmly. "What if Luffy doesn't accept me as his cook anymore."

"You and I know that you have more chance plaiting fog than that happening," Robin said. "Captain-san would never replace you with another cook."

"He better not," Sanji growled exhaling a huge plume of smoke. "No one else would be able to handle that shitty bottomless pit if I'm not around."

Robin smiled at the cook's sudden change in attitude.

"You see that's the Sanji I know. If you just act yourself I am sure you'll have no problem proving who you are."

"Thanks." Maybe Sanji was just taking everything out of proportion again, like the okama said to him at Kammabaka Kingdom.

"So Cook-san," Robin leaned on the nearby wall. "What was this you said about a tattoo?"

Sanji froze; she did mention that didn't she? Damn her stupid hormones making her all hysterical.

"Shouldn't you be getting to the safety of the ship Robin-chwan?" Sanji replied sweetly.

"No not yet."

"Really I must finish getting supplies. I've heard that Luffy should be here soon."

"Please Sanji-chan," Robin pressed. "I promise not to tell anyone else about it if you show me." She smiled innocently which made Sanji melt under the pressure.

"Fine," Sanji said. "You know that shouldn't work on me anymore."

"Yet it still does," Robin ran her fingers through her hair. "Navigator-san and I always believed that you were bisexual anyway."

"What!" Sanji couldn't believe it. Her beautiful Nami-san and Robin-chan thought she was attracted to men as well. Had the blonde made it that obvious? Sanji hadn't even notice it herself. "Why do people telling me that?"

"Oh you already know?" Robin said.

"The okama kept saying it after I transformed. Why do they all think that?"

"Well you did often show some feminine quirks sometimes. Like the way you stood sometimes or the way you always insisted that your clothes were tailor made. And you did often put too much effort in trying to woo the opposite sex."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Oh," Sanji sighed.

"But I never thought it made you any less of a man."

"Not that it matters now," Sanji bitterly added as she fell back into her self-loathing. Picking up the mood Robin tried to take her mind off it.

"I thought you were going to tell me about this tattoo."

"Oh yeah," Sanji grimaced. "Well I was really worried about the crew knowing who I was so they drugged me in my sleep and woke up with a tattoo and this around my neck. The said it was a way of proving who I was. But I think they did it for revenge for what I said to that shitty okama king just before he attacked me. Apparently the change in gender wasn't punishment enough. Any I can't seem to get either choker or tattoo off."

Robin stepped closer and to get a better look at the choker. She took the silver brooch into her hand and passed her thumb over the engraving.

"You know this is really quite nice," she told the cook. "Maybe the okama could make me one too."

"I'm sure they would love that."

"So lets see it."

"But Robin-chwan!"

"Do I have to restrain you?" Robin questioned as she crossed her hands menacingly. Sanji couldn't remember her seeming so threatening before. Sanji yelped and pulled up the back of her shirt to show the tattoo.

"Property of Strawhats and Emperio Ivankov?" Robin giggled uncontrollably.

"You're so cruel Robin-chan. Its not funny."

"It is a bit funny."

"Please don't tell anyone else. Can you imagine what Usopp would say, or even worse Marimo."

"I promise," Robin replied. "It'll be our little secret between us girls."

**Meanwhile in Grove 47.**

"I'm telling you, she was a psycho," the battered blonde man said to his companions. One was a short dark-haired woman and the other was an overweight man with green hair. The woman had a fairly disgruntled fox on a leash and an antlered creature was following them. "One minute she was acting all weak and innocent and then she attacked me."

"Well I wish you hadn't told the boss or we wouldn't be out looking for her," the green man said. "Now he wants her to join the crew." The blonde man shivered.

"I'm not sure I want that bitch on the crew," he said. "I would be constantly fearing for my life."

The other man would have carried on but he was interrupted by the small creature that was following them.

"Come on Sanji, Zoro, Robin!" It shouted out after them. "Why won't you talk to me?"

"Is that thing still following us?" he said.

"Yep." The blonde replied.

"What is it? A talking tanuki?"

"No take a look," the blonde said as he gestured to the Wanted poster that the pulled out of his pocket.

They both turned to get a look.

"That's the real Candy Floss lover Chopper. The real crew must have abandoned it here before they died," the blonde whispered.

"Its mistaking us for the real thing?" the large man said. "We better ditch the fox and get the real deal. It'll be so much easier to back our story up."

The woman turned to the men.

"Keep it? What would we feed it?"

"Candy floss… duh."

She sighed and kicked the fox away.

"Come on Chopper." She tried to give him a cucumber, but the reindeer backed away in fear.

Little did they know that they were being watched and suddenly the woman was attacked and taken away in a big sack, leaving the reindeer and pirates looking on in shock.

**Back at Grove 43's Market. **

Another Marine walked past, listening to his DenDen Mushi. Robin and Sanji paused as they listened in on his conversation.

"_We have captured Nico Robin. All units report back to HQ." _The DenDen Mushi stated. The marine stopped and gestured to the surrounding marines to following him.

"Roger that," the marine answered down the speaker, the group disappeared out of sight.

"I'll take this as my cue to leave," Robin said as she inched out of the shadows. "Looks like you were right Cook-san." She slowly headed out of the alley.

"I'll see you at the Sunny," Sanji said. "Be careful Robin-chan."

"Of course," Robin waved. "Don't forget, just be yourself and you'll be fine. Maybe you'll finally accept you have feelings for Swordsman-kun now."

"What!" Sanji shouted but it was too late and Robin was gone.

What did she mean by that? Sanji didn't have feelings for that insensitive, muscle brained Neanderthal. Maybe she was just teasing the blonde because she was worried about this whole situation.

"Yeah right," Sanji muttered. "She's just pulling my leg."

Sanji once again gathered all her shopping and headed into the next market in complete denial.

~~~~xXx~~~~

The rest of Sanji's shopping was rather uneventful. Without the burden off her long hair constantly getting in the way she felt lest irritable, even with what Robin said weighing down in her mind. The archeologist had a weird sense of humour.

Within a hour she had stocked up on everything except fish. Sanji wanted to see if she could buy some live fish that she could grow in the aquarium for an emergency fish stock. She had asked around and there was nowhere in Sabaody that sold live stock. The best bet was the fishing harbour so she headed towards Grove 42's harbour.

The fishing port was very busy. It was heaving with fishermen and shoppers trading the daily catch. Sanji had avoided the harbours so far because she had seen that the pirates were just making port wherever they felt like it, and some of the fishing districts had some of the larger galleons anchored there. The fact that the marines did little about this worried Sanji. Why weren't they trying to take these ships into their custody like they would have tried 2 years ago? Had they truly given up at Sabaody or were they just giving the pirates a false sense of security? She sensed that the reunion of the strawhat pirates, both fake and real, might finally get them to take action again. They certainly had when they had tried to take Robin in to custody.

Sanji wandered up to the closest stall to find a man selling his catch to some restaurant owners. When the man had finished she stubbed out her cigarette and went over.

"Excuse me, but do you sell livestock?" She asked.

"Well I've got some live lobster and crab, but I've sold most of it already. Are you buying in bulk?" The man replied with a smile.

"No. I'm afraid I'm looking for live fish that I may be able to farm in an aquarium for emergency stock on a ship."

"Sorry lass no-one has anything like that. We're not fish farmers see."

"Oh. Well thank you for your time," Sanji replied dejectedly before heading off. She might as well stock up on some fresh fish while she was here,

The fisherman looked at the cook and couldn't help fell a bit sorry for the girl.

"Well wait a minute lass," he shouted out after her. Sanji looked over her shoulder.

"Yes?"

"There's only on thing that I think may be useful. The live bait we use on some of our trip could be used for the same purpose. We use little frys you see, but they can still grow into some good stock."

"That could be good," Sanji mused. She never did like wasting food and using young fish as bait did seem a bit unnecessary.

"Do you know were I can find some?"

"I'm all out at the moment. Used the last of my stock this morning, but Geoff down the harbour is just about to head out. Maybe he'll have some that he's willing to give up."

"Where can I find this Geoff?"

"He's the guy with the blue fishing vessel over there," the man pointed to Sanji's left to the south of the grove. "He's the one with white hair, sunglasses and fish print trousers."

"Okay that's great," Sanji beamed in excitement. "Thank you so much Mr…?"

"You can call me Stillman," the man grinned back. "And what might a pretty lady like yourself be called?"

Sanji blushed, unused to the compliment. She had never been called pretty before and maidens had never complimented her like that when she was a man. Sure she dished it out easy enough but she was rarely on the receiving end. It was also nice to see a gentleman on this island, since it was full of lazy marines and scumbag pirates.

The blonde contemplated giving the man a false name to cover her tracks but she had a feeling that Mr. Stillman wouldn't go telling the marines anyway.

"My name is Miss Sanji Prince," she said. "Thank you again Mr. Stillman."

"Well good luck with your search Miss Sanji," the man waved her off. She smiled and waved back as she headed to her new destination, leaving the man to wonder where he had heard the name Sanji before and why it was so important.

~~~~xXx~~~~

Geoff the fisherman wasn't that hard to find. In fact it was quite hard to miss him with his strange hairstyle and garish trousers. It looked like Sanji was just in time, as he was looking busy sorting out some gear to go on his next fishing trip.

"Hello," she said hesitantly. "Mr. Stillman sent me over, he said you might have some live fry that you might be able to sell."

The man ignored her and started to look frantically down into the sea.

"Ummmm sir? Are you alright?" Sanji asked hesitantly. Mr. Stillman really did refer her to a nut job here.

"He's gone," the man said to himself as he looked on in distress. "He's gone. That green-haired guy."

"Green-haired…." Sanji paused. "Oh. What's that shit-head got himself into now?" She added under her breath.

"Did something happen," she asked aloud as she pulled another cigarette out of her pocket and put it on her lips.

"I've gone and done something terrible lass," Geoff said as he turned to her. He explained how a guy with three swords appeared and wanted to go fishing. Geoff agreed and sent him to the fisher boat, only the man chose to fall asleep on the wrong ship. That sounded like Marimo to Sanji so she pulled out a picture and showed it to Geoff.

"Yeah that's the guy," she said as he carried on to explain that the ship he was on was a pirate ship and it submerged to head to fishman island.

Sanji's eye twitched. Of all the things for the swordsman to do this may actually be fighting for number one on her stupidity list.

"That idiot," she said. What would Luffy do if Zoro got lost just before they set off? So much for arriving first.

The fisherman was still panicking; he kept babbling that the man was probably dead by now.

"Look Mister," Sanji scowled at the man. "Marimo is going to be fine. Now I have to inform the others that he's got lost again and I can't be dealing with that kind of crap at the moment."

"Wha…." Geoff looked perplexed.

"Anyway, as I was saying Mr. Stillman sent me over here to…"

"LOOK AT THE OCEAN. THERE'S SOMETHING COMING UP!"

"Oh for crying out loud," Sanji mumbled at being interrupted again. She looked out to the sea to see the surface of water bubbling fiercely. Within moments a huge pirate ship surfaced, cut clean in two. Sanji grimaced as only Marimo would do something as block-headed as that, barring the captain. There was uproar as people on the shore looked on in panic and the pirates on board frantically tried to find their way to safety.

"How dare you," she heard one of the pirates scowl. "You've ruined everything."

Then she heard a familiar voice answer.

"That's just how the dice roll. Blame fate for abandoning your ship to the Gods of misfortune." Everyone on the shore screamed when they noticed him. Sanji couldn't believe it. Zoro was probably the last person she wanted to meet up with. The stupid swordsman would tease her to no end about her current predicament. It also didn't help that when she saw the swordsman emerge out of the water with a glistening bare chest and droplets shining in his hair, made Sanji's stomach flutter. Damn her hormones for playing up now and damn Robin for saying that Sanji was attracted to Zoro. Why on earth would she be attracted to that insensitive idiot?

"I blame fate for giving you the worlds worst sense of direction Marimo!" she shouted. Zoro scowled at the remark and looked at the crowd looking for the choice. He put Wado Ichimonji back in it's sheath and coughed.

"I got on the wrong ship!"

"_Well that is obvious,"_ Sanji thought as she went back to Geoff.

"Look do you have any fish or not?" she said abandoning all hope of getting live fish for the aquarium.

"Sorry not at the moment. I was just about to go out and restock," the man stuttered at the angry woman.

"Okay," she sighed taking a final drag before stubbing out her cigarette and starting a new one. "Tell that meat head Marimo that he has to get back to the ship because we are leaving soon."

The man nodded mutely and watched as the angry woman headed off to another stall.

Zoro scowled at the pirates that were shouting at him from their tattered wreck of a ship. If only they were kind enough to let him back up to the surface, but instead they had threatened to kill him. They got what they deserved but they still had the nerve to gripe and moan like little children. He was positive he had heard someone call him Marimo but he couldn't see the cook or anyone else for that matter that would call him that. He thought he caught a glimpse of Ero-cook but it turned out to be a woman walking away from the scene.

He saw the fisherman he was supposed to go out with earlier stood looking panicked and he growled. He jumped into the water and went to shore.

"Oi you." Geoff heard the scary swordsman shout at him as he got back to shore. "Why did you send me on that other boat?"

"I didn't," he stuttered back, wincing under the man's glare. "I told you to get on that boat." He pointed at the boat with all fishing gear piled up next to it on the shore.

"Oh," he replied. "So when are we heading off?"

"We're not?"

"What! Why?" Zoro shouted.

"A lady came over here looking for fish and she seemed to know you. She said something like _'Tell Marimo to get back to the ship. We're leaving soon._'"

"Excuse me?" A couple of things in Zoro's mind just weren't adding up. The man just described Sanji except for that fact that he said it was a woman. The cook would not like being referred as anything effeminate. He always tried to make it quite clear that he was a proper man and would not want to be called a lady.

"Who said that?" he asked the fisherman. Geoff flinched once again under the gaze of the swordsman.

"She did," he pointed at the figure at a stall not so far off. It was the woman he saw walking away when he was still on the ship. She had short blonde hair and she had her back to them buying fish from the vendor. She had a cigarette in her mouth and half a tonne of food supplies tied onto a string in the balloon carrier bags. He caught a glimpse her face and he gaped. Only the crew knew why Sanji covered half his face with his hair so few people would know what his eyebrow was like on his left eye. This chick had one eye covered showing the right eye, her eyebrow curled towards the centre of her face.

The woman made brief eye contact with Zoro and she sneered just like Sanji would before she walked off.

Zoro had to know what was going on and followed her. If that was Sanji what the heck happened?

* * *

**Quick Note:** Sorry that there wasn't much interaction between Zoro and Sanji, but it will be better next chapter.**  
**

Next time: The whole crew reunite!


	6. Chapter 6

**6th November 2011  
**

**Summary:**

Sanji never kept it a secret how much he disliked the okama he was stuck with for 2 years. But he learns the hard way that one shouldn't anger Emporio Ivankov. You could end up experiencing some unfortunate changes.

**WARNING: **Contains spoilers from chapter 598 (Return to Saboady Arc) onwards! Rated for Sanji's bad language.**  
**

**Disclaimer:**

All characters belong to respective owners. This is non-profit fan-based story.

**Notes:**

-Sorry it has taken so long for the update. I have found this chapter really hard to do compared to my previous ones so I hope it is up to standard.

-Thank-you for the reviews on the last chapter.

-An Extra thank you to Xarciel for correcting all my mistakes.

-This is the final chapter, but never fear I have a bonus chapter, and an epilogue to come afterwards.

******On with the chapter!**

* * *

**Chapter 6:**

Sanji knew that Zoro was following her. That damned crazy fisherman had to confuse the swordsman by mentioning that she was female and now he was trying to figure out if the woman was Sanji or not.

His presence annoyed Sanji to no end but then she realised that Marimo would probably get lost looking for the ship. It would probably be better that he followed her as she headed to the ship. Yet it didn't help that the first mate was bringing up strange feelings for the cook. When the man appeared out of the water she wanted to get away from him as quick as possible before she embarrassed herself in front of him. She knew she would have swooned instantly if she hadn't run away, but now she believed that she had composed herself enough to look at him normally.

The men in the harbour were not very helpful when it came to getting some fish. The man she had just spoken to had nothing but hopefully the guy a couple of stalls down had some good stock. She was told that he had a good catch of tuna fish that she might be able to get for a good bargain. She went to the stall completely ignoring the swordsman that was curiously watching her. He wasn't being at all stealthy, just standing and staring.

"Sir, I've heard that you've got some fantastic Tuna fish available," Sanji said to the man once she reached the stall. "I was hoping to get some for a bargain."

'That we do lass," the fisherman said as he pulled out an iced crate full of yellow-fin tuna. "This is the last of it."

Sanji pulled a fish and inspected it.

"This is some good quality fish. I'll give you thirty belli for the crate."

The man laughed at her.

"I've been selling these for eighty belli a piece what makes you think that thirty is going to cover it."

"How about half price. Forty belli."

"No I can't lass, I won't accept anything less than seventy."

"Fifty?"

"Seventy." The man insisted.

"But I can't afford any more than fifty-five and my crew will kill me if I don't get any fish for the stock room." Sanji put on a pitiful expression to try and make the man feel guilty.

"How about sixty-five and I'll throw in some of these prawns as well," the man caved and gestured to his King Prawns.

"Deal," Sanji said quickly. "Captain will be pleased."

The man packed up the goods and gave them to Sanji. She finished out the last of her money before thanking him and setting off.

"Pirates," she heard the man mutter as she left. She didn't care; it was time to get her shopping back to the ship. She sighed. If Sanji were anything like the pirates in this place he'd have given those fish for free so he shouldn't be complaining.

**Meanwhile:**

In another part of Grove 42 there were two men running frantically through the streets. They were making their way through the groves at an incredible pace trying to find the reindeer that had slipped through their fingers.

"Like we really need another person to be looking for," the blonde panted. He was faring much better than the swordsman beside him. "I can't believe the little monster ran away, who would have thought it would leave its nakama like that. Especially when it was around the captain."

"Can't breathe," the large man gasped.

"I mean how the heck are we supposed to find all these guys before the meeting with the new recruits?"

"I don't… gasp… know," the fat green-haired man shrugged. "Can we please… gasp… stop!"

"No you sad excuse for Roronoa Zoro," the fake Sanji said. "Why don't you act like him and suck it up."

The swordsman frowned but took another deep breath and carried on with his fellow impersonator. There was no sign of Candy Floss Lover Chopper anywhere.

"How hard can it be to spot a talking reindeer?" the fake Zoro said. The blonde scowled. The man did have a point but they had already been through about 5 groves already and they had seen no sign of anything matching the description of the reindeer or the people the captain wanted to get his hands on.

They were just about to run to the next grove when they passed near the harbour and the blonde caught sight of something familiar.

Blonde Hair.

Red Shirt.

Black Suit.

High-heeled Boots.

Yep, that was the woman he met earlier, but there was something different about her.

The fake Sanji stopped in his tracks the Captain told him to bring this woman to him too as nobody humiliated any of the straw hats. The woman hadn't seen him yet so he'd better try and get her by surprise. The swordsman had also stopped and quickly made his way back to his companion and he was thankful for the break from running.

"That's her," the blonde whispered to his nakama as he pointed to the woman. He put his finger to his lips to tell the other man to be quiet and went to ambush the woman who had her back to him. The swordsman was left behind to catch his breath.

He grinned as he slowly edged closer to her, before finally realising what was different about her.

"I thought I told you that I'd beat you to a pulp if I saw you again," the man froze as the woman turned to make eye contact. Sanji had felt his presence for the last minute or so; she was trying to work out where Marimo had disappeared to. She hadn't made it that hard for him to follow her yet he had still disappeared from her radar. "So what would possess you to go around trying to attack me from behind?"

"You act all brave, but here you are trying to hide from me by cutting all your hair off," the man retorted.

"Maybe I was fed up of crappy impersonators pulling at it like it was a leash," she stubbed out her cigarette and sighed, before tying her shopping to a nearby post to keep it out of the way. She glared fiercely at the man. "Now you better leave my sight in ten seconds or you'll regret you were even born."

The man whimpered under the gaze but managed to recompose himself quickly when he heard his nakama approaching.

"You act all tough lady," he started. "But I've brought backup. Lets see how you fair against Roronoa Zoro."

Sanji paused. He wasn't being a very convincing Black-Leg Sanji if he was relying on the Moss-head to back him up. She would have never done that.

"I'll have you know that I can handle myself rather well against that shitty…" She trailed off when the large green-haired man walked up beside her fake.

She looked up at the man and was completely lost for words. There was an uncomfortable moment of silence until Sanji burst into uncontrollable laughter.

"That's Roronoa Zoro?" She giggled. "I've seen a cactus plant do a better impersonation."

The imposters were speechless, how dare she mock them!

"Oi bitch," the blonde said. "Don't piss of Zoro, he's a demon that could flay you alive." Yet Sanji simply wasn't listening, she was too busy laughing.

"Oh this is even better than the time at thriller bark," she sniggered to herself when she remembered the negative ghosts that hit Zoro. _"__I__wish__I__was__never__born.__"_ The cook tried to lower her voice to mimic the first mate.

The fake Zoro was not pleased. It was bad enough that she thought they were fakes and could expose them, but to openly laugh in his face was the last straw. He pulled one of his swords from his hip and pointed it at her.

"How dare you!" he threatened, but the woman was still ignoring him. Jumping forward he lunged at the woman and took a swing to her head, but she dodged. Taking a second sword out he attacked but Sanji blocked the man by bringing her leg up to meet the blades.

"As if a fat git like you could have any skill with the sword," the giggling had stopped and she was sneering at the man. "Just pathetic. Your already out of breath from what? two attacks?"

The fake cook was standing back in awe. She had managed to block two blades with her leg and it didn't even scratch her. Maybe he could get her now that she was paying all her attention to his nakama, but he stopped when she started talking once more.

"Oi Marimo," she shouted to no one. "I know you're following me. Come out and show this bastard what a real swordsman is like!"

"Why should I do that ero-cook?" A voice echoed through the street. A man in green appeared on the flat roof of the nearest building. "You always said that swordsmen were just Neanderthals that like to wave sticks about!"

"How the heck did you get up there shitty Marimo!" She asked, ignoring his remark.

The man in question just shrugged.

"I was following you and I got lost."

"How did you get lost when you are following someone?" She screamed back. "I was purposefully going slow so you couldn't loose me!"

Sanji kicked out at the large man and disarmed him. He flew backwards and fell on his back, all whilst she stood glaring at the man on the roof.

"Well if you knew I was following you why didn't you talk to me and then maybe I wouldn't have got lost!" The real Zoro shouted back. "Or were you embarrassed shit-cook?"

"Of course I was embarrassed grass head, just look at me!"

"You look better than you did before shit-cook."

"Better? Better! I'm a bloody woman Marimo!"

"I always thought you were a girl before so this is a great improvement!"

The two impersonators were looking on in confusion as the blonde woman and the man on the roof argued. Once again they were being utterly ignored.

"Look lets get her while she's distracted," the blonde said. "Then at least Captain will be happy that we found at least one of them."

The other nodded.

"Okay on three," the blonde said. "One … Two … Three!" They jumped toward Sanji and tried to knock her down, but with one swift kick they were on the floor.

"Oh sorry," she smiled. "I forgot about you shitheads."

"You won't be smiling when we take you to our captain," fat Zoro said.

"And how do you intend to do that? You can't even get a hit on me," Sanji stated.

"Oh you'll be coming with us," the blonde pulled out a gun and pointed at Sanji's head. "Captain will be having so much fun beating you into submission and using you as the whore you are."

It didn't take long for the man to realise that he had just mad a major mistake. The woman in front of him had gone completely stiff and her eyes were piercing right through him. She was releasing a killing intent that was suffocating and it seemed to bring the air temperature up a few degrees.

"What did you say?" Sanji growled menacingly before bursting into flames. The fake's hand was now shaking uncontrollably and the gun hit the ground with a loud thump. It was truly terrifying.

"Oi you," the man shouted from the roof. As the two impersonators turned to look at him he jumped off the roof and cleared an impossible distance before landing on his hands and knees right next to the fuming woman. They flinched as he stood up and looked directly at them. The aura that he was emitting was so demonic that it rivaled the killing intent that the woman was emitting. His unscarred eye screamed danger as he glared at the fake straw-hats.

"Run," he growled.

They didn't need telling twice. The two turned and scrambled away wishing that their legs weren't shaking from sheer terror.

Zoro sighed. Of all the idiotic things to say to shit-cook they had to say something so infuriating. You never say the 'whore' word in front of the love-cook.

He quickly glances at the woman. She wasn't on fire anymore and there was now no doubt in his mind that this was the cook. The face that she was pulling was truly frightening and was unmistakably Sanji. He had seen that face when defending Nami and Robin's honour, or when they were fighting an enemy. In fact Sanji had even directed a similar scowl towards Zoro on many occasions.

The imposters had finally gotten their footing and were running at full speed towards the next Grove. He sneered at the green haired swordsman who was already panting like a dog and was struggling to keep up.

"_Pathetic,__" _he thought. _"__I__'__m__ashamed__to__be__associated__with__that__man.__"_

"Budup, Budup, Budup, Budup."

Zoro was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of a DenDen Mushi. He looked away from the retreating figures to see that the transponder snail in Sanji's pocket was ringing. He looked up at the fuming woman and didn't dare to try and talk to her at the moment. She had zoned out to 'Sanji's angry place' and he wasn't going there.

With a big sigh he awkwardly tried to pull it out of her pocket and answered.

"Hello?"

"Zoro?" Usopp's voice rang out of the transponder snail. "Why do you have Sanji's DenDen Mushi?"

"Uhhh, Shit-cooks busy haggling with a shop keeper at the moment," he lied.

"_Shitty__Imposter,__"_ he heard Sanji mutter under her breath as she slowly began to calm down.

"Well let him know that Shakky said that everyone should get back to the ship at Grove 42. The marines are getting restless."

"Okay," Zoro replied, eyeing up the cook. She finally a bit looked calmer after running a string of expletives under her breath. "I'll let ero-cook know when the two have finished arguing and agreed on something."

"Okay then, but hurry up," Usopp said and he hung up.

**Meanwhile on the Thousand Sunny**

Shakky and Rayleigh had arrived at Grove 17 to meet up with those who were on the Sunny. Robin had joined Franky and not long after Nami, Usopp and Chopper had arrived. They greeted the two locals warmly and Rayleigh started to show Nami how to sail the ship, while Shakky started talking to the crew.

"Brook has just been picked up by the flying fish riders," Shakky said. "It looks like he really did make sure he had a grand farewell. I'm not sure where Zoro or Sanji-san are though. The last I heard was that Zoro nearly ended up going to Fishman Island on another ship."

The woman paused as Usopp appeared with a DenDen Mushi in his hands.

"Okay then, but hurry up," he said into the snail before hanging up.

"Well?" Nami said.

"Looks like Zoro is with Sanji as he was the one who picked it up. Apparently Sanji is in the middle of haggling with a shopkeeper at the moment but they'll head over as soon as he's finished buying whatever he's buying."

"Oh my. Swordsman-kun has already met up with Cook-san," Robin seemed a bit startled before putting on her mysterious smile. "That would have been very amusing."

"Yeah it's a shame that we weren't there to see it," Franky added glancing at the archeologist.

"Yes it would have been most interesting," Robin replied.

"Well I'm not," Nami scowled. "They have probably already tried to rip each other's throats out."

"I would not bet on it," Robin said with a knowing smile.

Nami, Chopper and Usopp looked at Robin suspiciously.

"Have you met up with Sanji yet?" Shakky asked.

"No," Usopp said. "But then again I've not seen Zoro yet either."

"I've only met up with you guys so far," Nami said with Copper nodding behind her. "What does it matter anyway?"

"No reason," Rayleigh said. "She's just happy that she won her wager."

The trio looked a bit confused to what Rayleigh and Shakky were on about but before they could question him Robin spoke up.

"I met cook-san coming out of the hair salon," she said. "Came out with the cutest haircut."

"Ehhhh?" Usopp said.

"Really, I was wondering when Sanji was going to sort that out," Franky said.

"Was it really that bad?" asked Nami.

"What does this have to do with Zoro?" Chopper added meekly.

"Anyway is there any news on Luffy?" Robin asked, pulling the crew out of the confusion. It was only making them agitated. They would find out Sanji's secret soon enough.

The crew shut up and looked up at Shakky expectantly. All the thoughts about Sanji and Zoro were gone.

"Luffy is on the island," Rayleigh announced and they all smiled with joy.

**Back with Zoro:**

"_Shit,__" _was all Zoro thought when he caught a glimpse of the marines in the distance. They were screaming something about the straw-hat pirates so he took that as their cue to get out of the market place.

He hadn't dared to try and talk to the hormonal woman next to him. Knowing what Nami was like in her moods and mixing that with Sanji's behaviour towards Zoro was lethal. However now Zoro had to be sensible and suck it up to get them to the Sunny as soon as possible.

"_Right,__" _he thought._ "__If__the__marine__soldiers__are__heading__for__the__Sunny__then__Grove__42__must__be__in__that__direction.__" _The swordsman grabbed Sanji's arm and shopping and dragged her in the direction that the marines were heading. He ran towards the nearest alley and started to head away the market place. The cook managed to stay completely silent, she still hadn't noticed what was going on and let the swordsman drag her down the street. It would have stayed this way as well if the swordsman were paying attention to where he was dragging her and she hadn't collided with some metal dustbins.

Zoro cringed as the noise from the collision echoed throughout the shadowy alley.

"What the hell!" Sanji bellowed. She tried to untangle herself from the pile of discarded dustbins on the floor. "Why don't you look where you are going Zoro?"

Zoro scowled as she got to her feet.

"Well if you were not in a world of your own I wouldn't have had to drag you anywhere!"

"You could have tried to bring me out of it."

"Are you serious love-cook?" Zoro glowered. "If you are anything like Nami in those moods I would have been lucky to leave with everything intact!"

Sanji withheld a scowl, trying very hard not to pummel the idiot where he stood.

"I could have beaten those shitty imposters but someone had to make them run away like tiny little cowards."

"If you had pummeled them what would have happened afterwards? Our cover would have been blown!"

"Like you've ever cared about that Marimo! You never stop to think about things like that." She sneered at Zoro but he was right. She couldn't believe she lost her temper like that. What about all that effort she put in to stay under the radar?

"Look," Zoro said. "I know you don't like it when people treat women like crap, and I know you don't like being on the receiving end of that kind of abuse but there are bigger things going down. Besides I'm sure you can kick his ass when we reunite with the rest of the crew."

"If we ever see them again?"

"Since when have you let someone get away with calling a woman a whore like that, let alone try and treat them as one?" Zoro reassured.

Sanji looked up to make eye contact with the swordsman for a brief second she could see that he was genuinely concerned, but Zoro looked away reverting back to his harsh gaze.

"Well well," Sanji smirked. It was strange that Zoro seemed to care. "You know the world is going down the toilet when Roronoa Zoro is trying to make me feel better."

"Shut it curly-brow."

Sanji sniggered before getting another glimpse at his exposed chest. Finally she looked around to see where she was.

"Why are we in a dark alley Zoro?" she asked as her mind went into overdrive. How had she forgotten how much Zoro had grown over the years? How could have she forgotten much this was affecting her and being in a secluded in a dark alley with him wasn't helping. Sanji couldn't fight the blush that was forming on her cheeks when she got her first good look at the swordsman. Zoro saw this and grinned.

"Looks like I know how to get some extra snack doesn't it Sanji?"

"Shut it Moss head!" How could she be so weak? "Anyway why are we in an alley?" She asked again.

"Usopp rang to say we have to get back to the ship. Since you were ignoring me I had to drag you to the meeting place in Grove 42. I was trying to hide from the marines!"

All the blood drained from her face as Zoro explained their predicament. The swordsman was navigating the streets on his own? That was not a good sign.

She ran out of the alleyway and into the streets to try and get her bearings.

"Oi where are you going cook?" Zoro chased after her. Ignoring the question Sanji looked around.

"Grove 42 is in the other direction Marino!" She was indeed right that Zoro's navigation skills had not improved. "You've taken us further away from the meeting point!"

Zoro narrowed his eyes and quickly started to argue with the cook.

"Well I couldn't exactly see where I was going in dark alleys."

"Bullshit!" Sanji wasn't believing any of it.

"Shut it number 7!"

"Excuse me?"

"Your number 7. I'm number 1 because I got here first and you're the one criticizing my sense of direction?" Zoro crossed his arms and turned away.

"That's idiotic thinking meat-head," Sanji's patience was beginning to wear thin once again.

"You're the idiot shit cook!"

"You Moron!" Sanji was fuming.

"Curly-Cue!" Zoro retorted.

"Marimo!" It didn't take long for the name calling to begin.

"Ero-cook!"

"Cyclops!"

Zoro paused.

"I may have lost an eye but at least I'm not a girl!" He looked almost triumphant at this remark, especially when Sanji pulled a very scandalized face. What the first-mate failed to mention was that he had no problem with Sanji changing gender. He had never had a problem with strong women, not since his pact with Kuina. However, he was worried that his relationship with Sanji would change, that the cook would start acting more girly and they wouldn't be able to fight like they used to. Zoro would never admit that he quite enjoyed his fights with the cook; it was their way of showing a mutual respect for each other.

So now Zoro hadn't really seen much of a change in Sanji's personality, he was grateful, although he didn't like it when she looked at him perversely and started to blush.

"I thought you said it was an improvement?" Sanji said.

"It is. Better you than me. At least I have more manliness than you ever had. Your gender now suits your fighting skills," Zoro goaded.

"What!" Sanji roared. "I'll show you. I've been through hell but my kick has surpassed your barbaric swordsman skills by miles."

"You wish," Zoro replied as he drew his swords. "My swords can still cut you to pieces."

The two clashed, much to the fear of the onlookers. They kept fighting for at least 5 minutes, their blows increasing in strength with each attack, until they finally took a small break.

"You've gotten better," Zoro grinned.

"You too," Sanji paused.

"But you're still not good enough to beat me." Zoro added, causing the blonde to choke. She would have replied but they were interrupted by a series of huge explosions.

"What the heck was that?" Zoro said.

"I don't know, but it was close." Sanji replied. Zoro headed off towards the chaos. "That's still the wrong way idiot! The ship is that way!"

"I don't care. It could be Luffy!"

Sanji had to give it to Zoro. The likelihood that Luffy was causing all the commotion was very high if they knew their Captain. Whatever the case was, Sanji was not going to get shouted at by Nami-san if she lost Zoro. The thought of the redhead telling her off was always bad, because Sanji felt that she had let her down, but suddenly it seemed more scary than upsetting and Sanji didn't know why.

The blonde suppressed a sigh ran after the Marimo. They better get back to the Sunny soon or the marines would be upon them.

It turns out Zoro was right. In true Monkey D Luffy fashion their captain had wandered into the imposters gathering just as the marines and Pacifistas arrived. As they were running towards the clearing Sanji was stunned when she saw Luffy take down one Pacifista with ease. The results of Rayleigh's training were phenomenal.

"Hey Luffy!" Zoro Shouted in front. Luffy looked in their direction; the boy hadn't changed at all. The look of unrestrained joy spread across his face and he shouted over towards them.

"Zoro, Sanji. I know that is definitely you!"

Sanji grimaced. It was obvious that he hadn't noticed Sanji's change, but it was obvious he had confused the two of them with those scoundrel imposters and it was typically Luffy. Yet she couldn't get angry with him. However she could get angry at the impersonators. Now she just had to find them again.

As they were running to their Captain a Pacifista obstruction their path and Sanji was about to attack when she caught sight of 2 certain pirates trying to get away unnoticed. Sanji smiled sinisterly and decided to let Zoro take care of it.

"I'll leave this to you Zoro. Revenge awaits!" She shouted.

He nodded in reply and Sanji ran off in another direction. She saw Zoro take down the Pacifista, by nearly cutting it in half, and was soon blocked by one herself. This was not helping.

At this rate the imposters would get away. Within seconds her leg was glowing red and she jumped up and kicked it in the head. It buckled under the pressure, but for good measure she kicked it in the abdomen.

Sanji was already running away when it hit the ground.

"So cowardly," she said as she caught up with the blonde and green-haired imposters. She blocked their escape and carried on. "To think you were so confident about beating me down earlier… What did you call me? Oh yes a whore!"

"Yo…your Black-Leg Sanji," the blonde imposter cowered. "But you're a girl."

"Very observant," she sarcastically remarked. "But if you were listening when I was talking to Zoro earlier you would have realised that I haven't always."

She paused and took in their terrified expressions. "Now I do believe I owe you something."

The cook kicked them each in the gut causing them to buckle. Before letting them get back up she beat them senseless before hearing her captain shouting.

"Where did Sanji go? He was just here a second ago."

"Shit cook just went to kick some imposters ass." She heard Zoro comment as she finished and headed back towards her nakama. The swordsman grinned when he saw her appear with a satisfied grin on her face. "Feel better?"

"Much," she said.

"Sanji. There you are! It's so great to see you!" Luffy shouted.

Sanji smiled warmly before starting up again. "Come on we have to get going and don't even think about getting lost Marimo!"

They both went after her. It was not a simple journey. Luffy caught sight of Rayleigh and thanked the man for his help before declaring that he would become pirate king. It wasn't long after that that the navy marines descended upon them. That was when the secret of Zoro's early arrival became clear.

Sanji recognised the young woman from Thriller Bark and she definitely recognised the negative ghosts that attacked the marines. With Perona's help they managed to get away, but the marines still kept coming. It looked like they were not going to have a clear run until their salvation came in the most unusual form.

"Oi!" they heard from above. The trio all looked up to see Chopper on a huge bird. The little Reindeer jumped down and bowled into Luffy in excitement.

"Guys! I've missed you!" he said with a little giggle.

"Chopper!" Luffy exclaimed with a smile.

"Zoro, Sanji." Chopper jumped down from Luffy's arms and into the cooks. Sanji gave the doctor a tight squeeze and Chopper tensed for a millisecond before looking at her quizzically and giving her his doctor look. He had jumped down to give Zoro a hug before Sanji knew it but she knew that the little guy is going to be annoying her about her condition before long.

"Rayleigh is at the Sunny. We have to set off as soon as possible. " The reindeer said as he clambered onto Zoro's shoulder. "I got us a ride to get us back."

"Okay!" Luffy shouted as he jumped onto the back of the huge bird. Zoro and Sanji followed not far behind and with some quick words from Chopper the bird headed back to the ship. They soared over all the marines and pirates fighting and Sanji caught a glimpse of a man with some huge bugs, and not very far from that she saw the okama fighting back some marines. The soldiers looked traumatized as the transvestites closed in, and Sanji caught one of them sending her a wink which sent a shiver down her spine.

"Poor buggers," Sanji couldn't help but feel sorry for the marines. She knew what it was like. Sanji could only hope that Perona's negative hollows didn't get them as well or they would be doomed.

They glided over the groves with relative ease. A few marines had spotted them but Luffy managed to dispose of them soon enough. The way the Captain fended them off without even batting an eyelid was amazing. Sanji couldn't get over how strong he had gotten with Silvers Rayleigh.

Sanji could tell that they were getting near as the landmarks were getting very familiar and Chopper was grinning happily. It wasn't long before the Sunny was in view and Chopper shouted out.

"Hey!" He shouted. "We're back!"

Luffy jumped in joy and started waving like a mad man.

"Hey guys!" he shouted.

"Luffy!" Sanji heard the crew shout up. She and Zoro gave a quick wave and the crew shouted up to them as well.

As the bird flapped his large wings to slow down Sanji took a long look at her nakama. Brook, of course hadn't changed a bit, but Nami and Usopp well…

The cook saw how the two had developed over the years and Sanji couldn't help but blush furiously. She caught the swordsman giving her a sly look and she scowled. She couldn't help it that Nami had forgone wearing proper clothes that day. She also couldn't help but notice how buff Usopp had gotten. Whilst it wasn't up to the Marimo's standards it suited the sniper very well and Sanji found it hard not to appreciate it.

On the deck Nami had paused in thought.

"That's strange," she said. "I would have sworn Sanji would have made some comment by now."

"Well Nami," Robin said. "Something may have happened to cook-san to warrant a less forthcoming reaction."

The navigator frowned at Robin's cryptic words. What had happened to Sanji to make Robin act so strangely? The archeologist had been talking nothing but riddles about him since they met up.

However before she could think about it the large raptor-like bird had gotten close enough for her nakama to jump off. First to land on the deck was Luffy who enthusiastically greeted everyone before running up to Franky and 'admiring' the cyborg's changes. Nami held back a growl of frustration and went to scold her captain for wasting time but was stopped when Zoro and Sanji landed on deck, with Chopper in tow.

There was silence.

Apart from the excited conversation between the shipwright and the captain everyone was stood in silence looking at the cook. Zoro and Robin were watching for the reactions o Nami, Usopp and Brook, for they had not seen her yet. All three had a look of shock on their faces and their piercing gaze was making the blonde woman shuffle uncomfortably on the spot.

"Oi Curley-Cue," Zoro nudged the cook next to him his elbow. "Way to steal the show."

"Shut it Marimo," the cook scowled back. "They're just shocked that your fashion sense had gotten worse. Who knew?"

"You got a problem with what I am wearing?"

"Yeah I do," she nudged him back. "Did you get dressed in the dark?"

"No," the man growled.

"I mean that colour doesn't suit your Marimo hair."

"Well if you hadn't noticed I was stuck with the girl that has to have her clothes match her hair colour for 2 whole years!"

"So you let a girl dress you?" Sanji retorted. "It's a shame. I thought that Perona chick had more sense than that."

"Why you!" Zoro went to pull out one of his swords and Sanji readied herself for the attack before,

"Ahem."

They turned to see Robin pointing at the stunned nakama. Chopper had gotten off Zoro's shoulder when he thought a fight was going to break out and was now behind Usopp. They were not looking as stunned as before, the argument between Zoro and Sanji seemed to have changed their shock to amusement.

Zoro sniggered as Sanji grinned sheepishly at them.

"Hey guys," she said, and Nami took this opportunity to run up to the blonde and envelope her in a tight embrace.

"Oh Sanji! Robin was right your haircut is adorable," she said as Usopp and Chopper joined Zoro in uncontrollable laughter.

Sanji was getting flustered as the redhead pressed herself against her. It was getting very hard to breathe.

"Nami-san," Sanji could feel the blood rising in her cheeks. If she kept this up Sanji wouldn't be able to contain herself.

Nami let go to look up at Sanji. She noted that the blonde was tense throughout her hug and Nami found it adorable when she noticed the blush on Sanji's cheeks. However it wasn't so endearing when the cook's eyes lowered to her chest and a familiar perverted grin appeared on her face.

"Sanji," Nami sternly warned as blood started to seep out of Sanji's nose.

"Uhh… Nami-s..san," the blonde stuttered. "Could you maybe put on a different top?"

Sanji couldn't believe that she was asking her lovely Nami-san to cover up but if Sanji looked at her any longer Sanji knew that she would end up doing something embarrassing. After all a lady never acts in such a perverted manner.

Nami and most of the crew could not believe what they were hearing. They never believed that they would see this day.

"Uh… Okay Sanji-san," Nami said. "I'll just go and get something." She might as well comply with the cook's wishes; she didn't want to be ogled at by another woman.

"I don't think we have time for that Nami," Robin spoke up. "Don't we have Marines closing in?"

"Oh my God!" Nami exclaimed. "I completely forgot! How much time have we already wasted?"

"Not much," Robin replied. "But we better get going. I'll get you a top and you can sort out Captain-san." The scholar pointed to Luffy who was still drooling over the new features on the shipwright.

Nami noticed this and her temper flared. Not only was Luffy there but Chopper and Usopp had also congregated around Franky.

"Oi Luffy!" She shouted as she made her way towards them. "We have to get going or the marines will barricade us in!"

She grabbed the captain and dragged him away.

"Do you want us to stop our adventure as soon as it has begun?"

This brought Luffy out of his daydreams and the Thousand Sunny was off. As they headed off the dock they were blocked by a Navy ship but they were saved by Boa Hancock's ship who kept them busy. Sanji was furious that Luffy was sent somewhere so nice, when she was sent to a living hell, but it was short-lived when they began to submerge and they were finally off to Fishman Island.

It was beautiful under the Archipelago and the crew quickly settled down on the Thousand Sunny. Sanji smiled warmly at the crews awe if the world around them but quickly realised that she and things to do. She headed to the kitchen with her supplies. Walking past Zoro she said.

"Oi Marimo, I'm going to sort out this lot," she pointed to her shopping. "Let me know if anything happens."

The swordsman grunted.

"Oh no you don't," she was stopped by a very aggravated doctor. "I have to check you over!"

"I'm fine Chopper. Really."

"I don't care. Who knows what the long term effects of this could have on your body!" The reindeer changed into his heavy point and dragged the cook away to the infirmary. Zoro and Usopp sniggered at her misfortune but Luffy looked confused.

"What's wrong with Sanji?" he asked.

"Chopper just wants to check that there is no side effects to shit-cooks changes," Zoro said patting the captain on the back.

"What changes?"

"You mean you haven't noticed yet?" Usopp said.

"Don't worry you'll figure it out," Zoro said as they left the captain on his own, watching the cook being dragged kicking and screaming to the infirmary.

Five minutes later Luffy could still be found with a pensive look on his face. The crew had just left him to his thinking when suddenly he jumped to his feet. There was a look of pure horror on his face and he screamed.

"Wait a minute! SANJI'S A GIRL!"

**END**

* * *

**So this is the end of the main story but as I mentioned before there is an epilogue and post fishman island bonus chapter to come.**

* * *

**Alternative Scene: **Where Sanji gets her revenge on the imposters and Luffy realises Sanji is a woman much sooner. _(More violent scene)._

Both Zoro and Sanji growled at the approaching Pacifista, how dare it get in the way of their captain? They didn't even stop as they got ready to attack it and within seconds the Pacifista was in a crumpled heap on the ground.

Sanji smirked at the damage that she had done and gloated to the swordsman.

"Look," she said. "I got the killing blow!"

"What are you talking about shit-cook?" Zoro sneered. "I'm the one who cut it in half."

"Well I broke its neck," Sanji retorted.

"It's a robot idiot," Zoro said. "It can't be killed by a broken neck."

"Well how do you know that?" They were interrupted by Luffy who was running towards them with a huge grin on his face.

"Guys! Its great to see you after all this time," he said ignoring the tension between his two strongest fighters. "You guys have gotten so strong."

Sanji paused and smiled warmly at her captain.

"Hey Luffy you're number 9," Zoro pointed. Sanji's temper flared and she had to take a deep breath before talking to Luffy.

"We have to get going Luffy. Everyone is waiting at…" The blonde trailed off when she noticed two retreating figures.

"Hey Sanji what's wrong?" Luffy looked curiously followed her line of sight at the two people. "Hey that's the two fakes of you guys!"

Zoro whipped his head around and narrowed his eyes at them, before glancing at Sanji. If looks could kill.

"See I told you," he smiled. "You did find them again."

"Yeah I guess your right," she smiled sinisterly and ran towards the imposters. "Revenge awaits!"

"Oi shit cook wait up!"

"Hey where's Sanji going?" Luffy shouted as he ran after the cook with Zoro not far behind.

"The imposters kind of pissed her off earlier," Zoro filled in Luffy while they were running. "They kind of got away earlier."

"Huh?" was all that Luffy said in reply. There was something that didn't seem right with this, but he couldn't quite figure it out.

Sanji was ecstatic. What a stroke of luck! It was if the impersonators had just walked into her hands and now she could finally get her revenge. No one holds black-leg Sanji at gunpoint and says that they were going to take her prisoner to be used as the sailors' plaything. No wait. No one treats any woman like that!

When she came upon them they were cowering in the corner of a dark alley trying to stay out of sight. They didn't notice anyone else join them so they were quite startled when they heard a familiar sinister voice form behind.

"So cowardly," she blocked their escape and carried on. "To think you were so confident about beating me down earlier… What did you call me? Oh yes a whore!"

"Yo…your Black-Leg Sanji," the blonde imposter cowered shrinking deeper into the shadows. "But you're a girl."

"Very observant," she sarcastically remarked kneeling down to face them. "But if you were listening when I was talking to Zoro earlier you would have realised that I haven't always."

She paused and took in their terrified expressions. "Now I do believe I owe you something."

The cook kicked them each in the gut causing them fly out of the alleyway right to the feet of Luffy and Zoro. They looked up and instantly made eye contact with Zoro and whimpered. Luffy still had a quite perplexed expression on his face and he frowned at them.

Eerily steady footsteps echoed out of the alleyway and Sanji appeared out of the shadows. All four of them were startled by her calm expression but the imposters still tried to scramble away, only to be stopped by a drawn sword in their face.

"Now if you wanted so bad to be like me you should have asked me earlier," Sanji smiled sweetly, but her eyes didn't reflect her innocence. "I would have gladly complied."

She looked at the green haired man cowering at Zoro's feet. "But maybe I'll sort you out first." She grabbed him by the scuff of the neck before kicking him down with a glowing hot foot. Before letting them get back up she beat him senseless and when she was finished she turned to the blonde. The man had managed to get behind Luffy and was using the Captain as a shield.

"Sanji," he said. "Aren't you taking this a bit far?"

"Leave it be Luffy," Zoro said. "Its not your fight." However the swordsman changed his mind when Sanji grabbed her double and kicked him right in the crotch with a glowing foot. He screamed and buckled in agony.

Everyone flinched as she carried on beating him.

"Hey Sanji what the heck are you doing?" Luffy screamed in horror.

"That's too far Shit cook."

"Shut it Zoro," Sanji sneered, stopping her assault. "If he wants to be so much like me I thought I would help him along a bit."

"Wait what happened to you Sanji?" Luffy panicked. He had gone completely hysterical before Sanji noticed something click. "Wait a minute have you always been a girl?"

Zoro snorted in laughter.

"Of course she hasn't Luffy. Although she did have some feminine tendencies." Sanji glared daggers at the Swordsman.

"Then what happened?"

"You know him," Zoro laughed. "Apparently it was that purple haired okama."

Luffy's eyes lit up. "Oh you met Iva. Shishishishi. That's so funny. Why did you let him do that?"

"Sanji says she didn't let him do it," Zoro said over his laughter.

"Oh you think its so funny Marimo… Luffy? Because I'll happily give you the same treatment as Mr. Imposter over there!" Her voice broke a little into a shriek. Luffy stopped laughing and his eyes widened in horror. Zoro just paled slightly.

"Even so," Zoro bravely carried on. "Having been a man yourself what on earth would make you do _that?_"

"Who cares Marimo?" She replied he eyes were unfocused and it seemed as though she was blind with rage. "Its not like I'm ever going to worry about that now is it? In fact I found it rather satisfying." She smiled evilly and tapped her foot oddly. A white-hot blade came out of the boot. "Do you have a problem with that?"

Luffy whimpered and shook his head quickly and Zoro growled. Sanji gave the imposter a last kick with the bladed boot and walked off.

"Come on we have to get going and don't even think about getting lost Marimo!"

"Are you mad?" Zoro said, not moving. She looked back over she shoulder with a glare that sent shivers down Zoro's spine.

"You know that I only punish those who deserve it," Sanji smiled innocently. "Now come on!"

They complied and followed quite far behind.

"Zoro?" Luffy asked.

"Yes?"

"Do you think Sanji really would have done _that_ to us?"

Zoro thought back to when Sanji was catatonic with rage in the market grove. Of course he thought she would have gone through with it. Her mood swings and anger problems were much worse than Nami's.

"Yeah I do."

"She's gotten really scary."

"Yeah."

"Zoro I miss the old Sanji."

"So do I."

"I need to find Iva-chan, we have to change him back."

"I know Luffy," Zoro said. "I know."

Luffy nodded in agreement and they caught up with Sanji and they headed towards the Sunny.

Life continued much the same on the Thousand Sunny once all the crew were reunited. However, the crew couldn't work out what had gotten in to the monster trio. Sanji and Zoro still quarreled and Luffy still whine like crazy for food. Yet if Sanji weren't in the mood for any of their trouble she would calmly threaten them and click her boot menacingly. The two would go extremely pale and shut up. They all wondered what had happened on Sabaody Archipelago before Chopper arrived, but no one would say a word about it and it frightened them. And no one ever found out either.


	7. Epilogue

**11th February 2012  
**

**Summary:**

Sanji never kept it a secret how much he disliked the okama he was stuck with for 2 years. But he learns the hard way that one shouldn't anger Emporio Ivankov. You could end up experiencing some unfortunate changes.

**WARNING: **Contains spoilers from chapter 598 (Return to Saboady Arc) onwards! Rated for Sanji's bad language.**  
**

**Disclaimer:**

All characters belong to respective owners. This is non-profit fan-based story.

**Notes:**

-Sorry it has taken so long for the update. I found it quite difficult to get it how I wanted and the newspaper format was especially difficult.

-Thank-you for the reviews on the last chapter.

-Take a look at Xarciel's awesome art for Sanji's red shirt outfit. The link can be found on my profile page.

******On with the chapter!**

* * *

******Epilogue:  
**

All was quiet on the Baratie and Zeff did not like it. Ever since Sanji had left those two and a half years ago was bad enough but now that Patti and Carne have moved out to start up the new restaurants in the Baratie chain, the silence had become unbearable.

Both of the new restaurants have been a great success. One can never underestimate the demand for an on sea restaurant. Although they do quite often bring in the wrong crowd, Zeff was sure that Patti and Carne can hold their own against the likes of both pirates and marines that may cause trouble. The building to modify the Baratie had now finished and Zeff walked onto his own personal balcony to watch the sun rise and have his breakfast, before the morning rush.

The sea was unusually calm this morning but Zeff felt a disturbance in the air. His thoughts drifted to Sanji. The boy was like a son to him and the news of the strawhat's disappearance hit him hard. Yet the chief didn't stop believing that his little eggplant was alive. He knew that Luffy had sent a message to the whole crew when he went to Marineford for the second time. He didn't know what that tattoo meant but he knew that soon the name of the Straw-hat pirates was going to spread throughout the world once more.

Zeff had heard the rumours that the Straw-hats were recruiting in Sabaody Archipelago. There was something that didn't quite seem right with the news as Luffy did not seem the type to recruit nakama in such a manner but Zeff still knew that Sanji would make an appearance.

The silence didn't last long when there was a load bang in the kitchen below. Zeff sighed, finished his breakfast and stood up to head down to the kitchen. If his staff were already causing trouble at this hour it didn't bode well for the rest of the day. He had better get down there to sort them out before it got out of hand.

It turned out that one of the chefs had dropped and smashed something in the kitchen. This initiated an argument with the chef accusing one of his colleagues for knocking him and causing the accident.

"What the heck is going on!" he bellowed as he entered the kitchen. There was a series of gasps before the kitchen fell silent and all eyes turned in fear to the doorway.

"Boss!" They all chorused on the spot.

"Why has breakfast not started yet?" Zeff demanded. "We have customers due in an hour and what on Earth was causing all that bloody commotion?"

The chefs looked truly terrified and started to glance sideways to the two perpetrators.

"It was them," they pointed blame.

"I don't care who it was, just why it has stopped you from working before the breakfast rush."

The crew looked ashamed as they looked at Zeff but showed no sign of moving. He was close to blowing his top if they didn't start cooking.

"Well get going!" he shouted and they all scrambled to get to their posts and began to prepare the kitchen. However it wasn't long before they were interrupted once again.

"Chef!" An exclamation rang through the congregation. Zeff looked up to see one of the waiters running in and looking quite frantic.

The cooks kept working for fear of worsening the temper of the head chef.

"What is it?" he sighed in exasperation.

"The Newspaper. Look!" the waiter pulled out the daily newspaper and showed the front page.

"Sir it is the Straw hat pirates. They have returned." He added.

"What? Let me see that," Zeff said and the waiter rushed over to hand him the newspaper.

"STRAW HAT PIRATES RETURN," Zeff dictated the headline before him. Within seconds all the kitchen staff were around him in excitement. The whole restaurant had begun to worry about Sanji when the 1 year mark after his disappearance had passed. He had ceased writing letters two years ago and there was no news on the activities of the straw hats after the war at Marineford.

Relief filled Zeff as he began to read. Any news that his charge was okay will be a huge weight off his mind, as he would never forgive himself for forcing him out of the restaurant if it only lead to his downfall. He cared for Sanji a great deal, even though he rarely showed it, and he would never see the boy as anything but family.

Zeff was suddenly brought out of his thoughts when he noticed something odd in this article.

Wait. No. That couldn't be right? Zeff had to pause and double check if he wasn't seeing things.

"Oh," Zeff stared in shock at the article. The kitchen staff sat in worry as their boss stood rigid on the spot. Nothing surprised the infamous Red Leg Zeff easily so something terrible must have happened.

"What happened boss?" Asked the sous-chef in worry as he tried to read the article over his shoulder. "Did something happen to Sanji?"

"You could say that," but before he could continue Zeff burst out laughing.

"Chef!" they yelled around him. None of them had any clue what had gotten into him as they couldn't get a good look at the article. Had he gone insane?

One went to grab the newspaper and Zeff stopped. "Is Sanji okay?" He asked looking at the headline in his hands.

"Why don't you read it out loud?" Zeff smiled, heading to a stool to sit down to listen.

**STRAW HAT PIRATES RETURN**

The cook cleared his throat and carried on.

**Straw Hat Luffy has finally returned from the shadows after a 2-year absence. The 400 million Belli pirate appeared as a group of imposters were trying to recruit more members to their crew. **

**After hearing the leaks at the infamous crew were recruiting in Sabaody Archipelago we at the Blue Press instantly sent out many of our best undercover reporters to Sabaody Archipelago to investigate. The Pirate known as Demalo Black managed to recruit some to the more infamous pirates that had currently reached the redline. They all gathered in Grove 46 when the marines attacked and Officer Sentomaru and the Pacifistas defeated many of the pirates. Black was easily disposed of by the commanding officer and exposed for the liar he was. The 26 million bounty pirate was no match for Sentomaru. At this moment the Pacifistas locked on to the real Straw Hat Luffy and attacked. Straw Hat quickly appeared out of the crowd to destroy the Pacifista in one blow. With the arrival of Black Leg Sanji and Roronoa Zoro they easily escaped leaving a trail of destruction behind.**

All cheered.

**After many attempts to try and capture the pirates the marines seemed to be stopped at every turn preventing any officers from reaching the shore. Dark King Silvers Rayleigh openly exclaimed that the young Captain was his student and blocked their path along with many other unusual occurrences. Freak weather patterns, gigantic insects and bouts of severe depression were some of the obstacles in the way. **

**Once at the shore we witnessed that the whole crew had gathered and were ready to leave. Marines offshore were held back by none other than the Shichibukai Boa Hancock who helped the pirates submerge before anything more action could be taken. The Government is disappointed that such a disruptive crew managed to escape but they now believe this is a good opportunity to prove the strength and effectiveness of their new G5 unit. **

**Read more about Blue Press exclusive on the Straw Hat Pirates and what they have been doing the last 2 years on page 4. **

One the cook had finished reading the short article the kitchen staff stood in confused silence.

"I don't understand," Zeff's second in command said. "What's so funny about that?" There was nothing at all funny about the article at all. He snatched the paper off the other cook and reread it.

"Look at the picture," Zeff said.

"Huh?"

The main picture on the page was of the ship marked with the Straw Hat's Jolly Roger as it began to submerge. The whole crew could be seen on deck with all their attention on the captain who was stood on the main mast.

"_Last glimpse of Straw Hat Luffy and his crew before they submerged. From left to Right: Soul King Brook, Nico Robin, Black Leg Sanji, Sogeking, Burglar Cat Nami, Monkey D Luffy, Roronoa Zoro, Tony Tony Chopper and Cyborg Franky," _the sous-chef muttered under his breath.

The longer he looked at the picture he noticed that something wasn't quite right about the picture of Sanji. The picture was quite small and only half of his face was visible.

"Is that Sanji?" It looked like Sanji but the hair wasn't quite right and he seemed to have lost weight. He looked like a woman.

"Yes," Zeff said. "Look closer."

He looked closer and noticed that the figure did look exactly like a female version of Sanji.

"Oh," he said, as he ripped open the newspaper and his eyes bugged out. The rest of the kitchen was still waiting nervously as they tried to get a good look at the paper.

There was a double page spread of profiles of the whole crew. How on earth the press managed to get so much information on the pirates was ridiculous. Then again the only decent pictures were of Soul-King Brook, Luffy, Roronoa Zoro and Sanji, the rest were questionable at best.

"Can they do this?" he asked Zeff as he showed him the spread. "I mean I thought the government censored this kind of stuff."

"They only censor things that is damaging to them. It is only an advantage that the press have managed to get such a good profile on the whole crew," Zeff replied.

"Wait what does it say?" said the pastry chef.

"Yeah what the heck is going on?" another cook shouted out.

"Did something happen to Sanji?"

"Yeah what has he been doing all this time?"

"Tell us!"

"Alright alright," the sous-chef shouted. "I'll read it out."

**STRAW HAT PIRATES 2 YEARS STRONGER**

**It is a well known fact that after the war 2 years ago the straw hat pirates disappeared. Many rumored that Monkey D Luffy didn't survive his injuries after he invaded MarineFord for the second time. What happened to the rest of the crew? The last they were all seen was on the unforgettable day when Monkey D Luffy attacked one of the celestial Dragons. It only can be assumed that when they were attacked by Bartholomew Kuma, that he used his devil fruit power to separate them. If so why have they not shown themselves before? Why did they all arrive separately? And what have they been doing all these years?**

**After extensive research by our team of journalists on the scene we can confirm that they have been training in preparation for the New World. One can only assume that this crew is going to be a force to be reckoned from now on.**

The man paused and looked at the congregation.

"This is ridiculous, this has to be wrong," he said.

"What!" They chorused in irritation. They really wanted to know what had got them agitated.

"Monkey D Luffy… Rayleigh said himself that he is his student. Training in Haki. Possibilities that he is involved with Boa Hancock," the sous-chef skimmed through the newspapers trying to get to Sanji. "Soul King Brook: apparently he has been with the crew since before he got famous. Very skilled swordsman. Roronoa Zoro: Possible loss of depth perception. New sword. Managed to cut a ship in half when underwater. Nico Robin: Huh… Nothing but a picture about her. Sogeking: Unmasked, Oh look it's that long nosed guy Usopp. No surprise there. Cyborg Franky: Major modifications to his body. Burglar Cat Nami: Learned some strange thing with clouds and lightning. Tony Tony Chopper: Apparently believed that the fakes were the real deal, but then again so did straw hat. Has the ability to summon huge birds. Oh finally, here's Sanji."

"Last…Typical he never gets the credit he deserves," scowled the waiter.

"Well it does have the most written about him," Zeff said.

The head chef was right. The article on Sanji was much longer than the other's bar Luffy's. The picture and writing took up nearly a whole column.

The sous-chef carried on and read the headline.

**Black Leg Sanji Ladies Man?**

"Ohh lets see the picture," said one.

"No wait until he's finished," Zeff said.

**Straw Hat Crew member Black leg Sanji has been transformed into a woman by okama. **

Most of the restaurant was filled with shocked gasps.

**Our team of journalists noted a blonde woman who seemed out of place with a group of extravagant okama at the docks. The disgruntled woman seemed uncomfortable around the men and made a very large scene in public before disappearing into the crowd alone. However this was not the last time that she was noticed. **

**The blonde woman was seen multiple times arguing with the imposter Sanji and she was also seen with Roronoa Zoro. **

'**It was terrifying that the pirate was taking so much in the woman,' said an eyewitness who saw her with the imposter. 'She look pretty harmless even when the guy was getting angry. But then the man said something offensive and pulled her hair when she was leaving and she just flipped and kicked him in the head. He flew away miles. It didn't seem right that the infamous Black Leg Sanji could be defeated with a single kick.'**

'**She told me to leave Roronoa a message to get back to the ship,' the shopkeeper who saw Roronoa Zoro emerge from the sea on a decimated ship stated. 'It was obvious that she knew the man.'**

**During the commotion with the marines began Roronoa and the blonde met up with their captain and each destroyed a Pacifista with ease. Straw Hat confirmed that this blonde woman was indeed Black Leg Sanji.**

**The question now is how such an event could have happened and after interviewing the okama that the woman was with in the harbour we now have an answer. Emperio Ivankov attacked the pirate in a fit of anger not too long ago. **

'**Sanji-chan has been on the island with us for ages. Ivan-sama let him stay so he can train,' one of the okama said. It seemed as though they okama were quite fond of the blonde.**

'**He would always tease us and say no to us when we asked him to join us,' another added. 'He was such a cutie, but then he said something bad to Ivan-sama so he had to be punished.'**

**Emperio Ivankov also known as the Queen of the okama has a unique power from the Devil Fruit known as the Horu Horu no Mi. This gives him the ability to use hormones to manipulate the human body. One of the most famous of these hormones is the one with the ability to change gender. Ivankov was imprisoned in impel down for his association with the Revolutionaries. He escaped in the mass breakout 2 years ago and fought beside Straw Hat Luffy during the war. **

**It is not known whether transformation is permanent but it can be confirmed that Black Leg is just as deadly if not more, than before the Straw Hat's disappearance.**

Finally it had finished and the sous-chef showed passed the article to those around him. They all took a good look to make sure that the man wasn't lying but they were convinced when they saw the picture of the woman.

"Of all the people to be changed by a devil fruit it had to be Sanji," the pastry chef sniggered. "If he was with okama for 2 years he must have been in hell."

"That or he was converted," another added.

Everyone burst into laughter with the exception of owner Zeff. The idea that the blonde would willingly become a woman was just ridiculous. The man loved women to and loved to spoil them, but he thought of himself as a proper gentleman. Although he did have a habit of putting his foot in his mouth around the opposite sex so they had no problem believing that he had done something to anger the king of okamas.

Once the laughter died down there was an awkward silence.

"Wow," a cook in the back of the crowd said as he finally saw the article. "Sanji makes one hot woman!"

"Oi," Zeff shouted. "That's my daughter you're talking about."

The cook's breath hitched as the angry glare of his boss bore into his back. He had forgotten that he loved Sanji like his own kid of course he is going to be more protective that he was a girl.

There was silence was unnerving but it was quickly broken when the sous-chef began to snigger at the man's discomfort.

"Jacob you idiot, you never know when to keep your mouth shut," he snickered as he pulled out a bottle of sake. "I propose a toast."

They all cheered and grabbed a shot of Saké.

"To Sanji," Zeff said.

"TO SANJI!" The kitchen was filled with cheering and drinking.

"Right now get back to work!" The boss demanded. Within seconds everyone was getting orders ready for the customers that had arrived for the breakfast rush. Once everything had finally started to get ordered Zeff took a break on the balcony out the front of the restaurant.

"_Good for you kid," _Zeff smiled as he looked out to the sea. _"Never let anything stop you from achieving your dream."_

* * *

**A/N: Don't forget I have a bonus chapter next and it will finally be finished. And don't forget to check out my profile page for the link to Xarciel's awesome fanart.**

_Until next time :)  
_


	8. Bonus Chapter

**21st June 2012  
**

**Summary:**

Sanji never kept it a secret how much he disliked the okama he was stuck with for 2 years. But he learns the hard way that one shouldn't anger Emporio Ivankov. You could end up experiencing some unfortunate changes.

**WARNING: **Contains spoilers from chapter 598 (Return to Saboady Arc) onwards! Rated for Sanji's bad language.**  
**

**Disclaimer:**

All characters belong to respective owners. This is non-profit fan-based story.

**Notes:**

-This should not have taken so long but this is the last chapter. It still hasn't quite come out as I expected but I hope you like it nonetheless.  
-Thank-you for the reviews on the last chapter.  
-Take a look at my profile to find the links for artwork for this fic.

******On with the chapter!**

* * *

The fight in Fishman Island certainly had been eventful. Sanji's lifelong dream of visiting mermaid cove had been granted and not only that, she had met the mermaid princess in the flesh. It wasn't as great an event as Sanji had hoped as the blonde was trying desperately to contain herself around all the beauty. Especially as it turned out that Mermaid Cove also had a neighboring cove with equally hot mermen in it. All in all it left the blonde cook very confused and on the brink of an emotional breakdown.

The arrival of the Merman Princes had been the last straw. Sanji stopped caring whether she was making an idiot of herself when she was held against the beautiful Ishilly she passed out from blood loss. The shame of having the okama donate blood was almost too much to bear but when she was visited by one of the mermen she seemed to completely forget all her troubles.

Now the battle had ended the Straw Hats disembarked to the New World. The crew were extremely lucky to emerge in a relatively calm area of sea so the crew thought it was a good time to get catch up and relax before they encountered more trouble. This also gave Sanji time to revaluate her romantic feelings.

There was a party and the crew finally found the time to catch up as Sanji cooked up a feast. The night was taken up with the crew telling stories about their exploits over the two years. Some of them were quite talkative about their time away, Usopp and Franky seemed to have quite a lot to say. Others like Zoro and Robin were a bit more tight lipped. Nami and Robin were talking amicably between themselves and Luffy was busy stuffing his face and laughing at Usopp's stories.

When it got to Sanji's turn she faltered and just told them what was known before running away to clean the kitchen. She claimed that 2 years of built up grime needed to be eradicated.

It wasn't long before the crew started to slowly filter out of the galley and go to bed, leaving Sanji alone. She spent a good few hours thinking over all the confusing thoughts going through her head. By the time she had finished, the kitchen was sparkling but she still felt like she had gotten nowhere and what was worse she now didn't know where to sleep. She couldn't sleep with Robin-chan and Nami-san, that would be weird, but she couldn't sleep in her bunk, what if they didn't want her there? Why hadn't she sorted this out before everyone went to bed?

She stood at the door of the men's dorms and smiled. There was an air of calm that she missed but when she got further into the room she panicked. Running to her locker she grabbed a bundle of her old clothes and ran out. She had grabbed an old shirt and a loose pair of trousers before running back to the kitchen.

Deciding that she couldn't sleep she went to sit down at the table. Lighting a cigarette with her old oversized clothes on began to think about everything that happened since she changed. It would take a while but she was determined to sort her life out.

* * *

Robin sighed as she flicked her loose plait over her shoulder and looked at her watch. Standing up and stretching she pulled her large t-shirt back onto her shoulder. She had been on watch for 5 hours now and she still hadn't seen a thing to show that they were in the new world and it was very worrying. She knew of the three islands that they were supposed to encounter and the sea was to be treacherous. The calm was unnerving.

Nami had assured her that they weren't due to reach any islands for a day or so, but still from the information that Robin had gathered she had at least expected to come across the marines. She knew that Captain Smoker was heading the G5 squad and would not let Luffy slip through his fingers once again.

The sun was beginning to show across the horizon and she decided it was time to call it a night and head down for some well-deserved coffee. After leaving a few eyes on the outside of the crows nest she placed her book on the shelf in the corner of Zoro's training room and made her way down the ladder.

The kitchen door opened silently letting the dawn light filter though the door. The room seemed empty but Robin could hear someone's soft breathing in the shadows. Flicking the light switch on she saw Sanji asleep at the table. The cook looked terrible hunched over the table with her head in her arms next to an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. Robin had not seen anyone moving around on deck since her night watch shift began so she must have been there all night.

Instead of waking her with her Devil fruit powers Robin headed over to the cook to shake her shoulder gently. She made her way over silently, her bare feet padding softly on the wooden floor. If the cook didn't get up soon the rest of the crew would come in and Sanji would hate it if she hadn't gotten breakfast started.

"Sanji," Robin said gently only to get a grunt in response. "Wake up."

The Blonde groaned as her eyes opened slightly.

"Sanji." Robin repeated shaking her a little harder.

Sanji twitched and jolted awake in horror when she saw Robin's concerned blue eyes watching over her.

"I'm awake!" She exclaimed causing Robin to giggle.

"Yes I can see that."

"Sorry Robin-chan am I late for breakfast?"

"No don't worry its only 6.30 you have plenty time yet. I was just coming to get some coffee," Robin reassured. "Its my shift on watch."

"Oh then let me!" Sanji exclaimed feeling embarrassed that the older woman had caught her. "I'll have some made up in no time."

Sanji got up from her chair and flinched in pain. He back was in agony; she has to stop falling asleep in stupid positions.

"Don't worry Sanji-san. I can make us a batch while you sort out your back," She said noticing how the cook tried to hide her stiffness, making Sanji nod appreciatively.

Ten minutes later found Sanji and Robin sat at the dinner table, each holding a cup of coffee. Sanji stretched out her back and was now feeling much better.

"Why were you sleeping in the kitchen Sanji-san? I expected you to use my bed in the ladies quarters while I was on watch tonight."

Sanji scowled in as her pale skin reddened embarrassment.

"I was thinking and fell asleep."

"What about?"

"Where I belong."

Robin frowned at the cook as she sipped her coffee as she waited for her to explain herself. The cook had been having this identity crisis since they first met up again. It was getting rather tiresome.

"You know how I acted at fishman island, what if everyone thinks I'm a freak and keep trying to avoid me?"

"Nami and I never avoided you because of your forward attitude towards us." Robin answered calmly.

"But…"

"And Luffy will not care unless affects your cooking."

"Robin…"

"I find that you are being extremely stupid that the others would think if it never bothered you before."

"But…"

"In fact I think quite a few of our men find you quite attractive."

"Now I think that you are getting off the point Robin-chan," Sanji blushed, managing to get a word in as Robin took a sip of coffee.

"Perhaps," there was that enigmatic grin again and they sat in silence with coffee in hand.

The door opened up with a huge creak and the two women looked around to find a very sleepy Chopper looking at them.

"Chopper what are you doing up so early?" Robin asked, the little reindeer never normally got up until Usopp woke him. The young doctor was a very sound sleeper.

"I can't sleep." He yawned. "It feels like it's getting hotter."

Sanji frowned, Chopper was quite susceptible to the heat, but it had never stopped him sleeping before. Catching Robin's eye, she noted that she had similar concerns for the doctor.

"Chopper do you want a nice cold chocolate milkshake?"

A sleepy nod was the cook's only response and she quickly went to work trying to avoid the lingering conversation with Robin. Yet it wasn't to last as she spoke up again.

"Did you know I was given the most interesting medical book when I was with the revolutionaries?"

Chopper shook his head sleepily as a book appeared in front of him with a flourish of petals. Sanji placed his cool milkshake in front of him.

"Why don't you find a good cure for a bad back?" Robin said with a smirk at the cook, as though she was going to tell the doctor that she had slept at the table. She couldn't handle the scolding.

"Okay," Chopper nodded sleepily and Sanji sighed in relief. Yet that wasn't the end of it as Robin looked at the cook seriously. She frowned as though the cook had done something to offend the archeologist.

"Right Sanji, lets sort you out," Robin gestured for Sanji to come to her seat.

"Wha…?" Sanji was grabbed by a stray arm and pushed forward. Giving her a critical look at her attire Sanji shifted uncomfortably only to find that Robin had grabbed her by the ankles to stop her getting away.

"Why are wearing something like that anyway?"

Sanji looked down and blushed. She had forgotten that she had one of her old shirts on, with very baggy jogging trousers. It was nothing like her usual attire and she looked rough. Not like Robin who was practically glowing in her over large T-shirt and hot pants. Her loose plait was falling over her shoulder, and it framed the outfit nicely.

"It smells like the men's bedroom," she replied quietly. "It made me feel comfortable since I knew I couldn't possibly sleep there now."

"Yes well we will have to talk about later won't we?"

Sanji nodded and smiled hopefully. Not wanting to feel uncomfortable while she sleeps anymore, she has had enough of that the past two years.

"Right," Robin stood up. "You cannot walk around looking like that all day." Grabbing the immobile and still slightly startled blonde she eyed Sanji's necklace critically. Mumbling under her breath she grabbed the brooch and fiddled around with it before opening it with a resounding 'click'.

"There," Robin smiled as Sanji gasped in surprise.

"Wait how did you do that?" she asked. "I've been trying to do that for weeks!"

Robin chuckled at Sanji turning the cook around. "I've always been good with my hands Sanji-san. Surely you should know that."

Choking Sanji looked at Chopper, hoping he hadn't caught Robin's suggestive tone the small doctor was still reading the book in his half asleep state.

"Robin!" Sanji didn't think that she could blush any more but it seemed as though she was wrong. "Not in front of Chopper," she added in a lower tone.

"Really Sanji-san, I don't see what's wrong," she said.

"But."

"Stand still," Robin ignored Sanji's protests and grabbed the over-large Sanji's and began to fold in darts and creases. After a few minutes of experimenting Robin pulled out the straw-hat brooch and pinned her shirt back. Now the huge shirt fitted perfectly on Sanji's petite frame and she was left in awe at Robin's skills.

"Very nice if I don't say so myself." Robin finished. "Now to sort out those sweatpants."

Hands sprouted down by the counter and pulled out Sanji's traveling trunk.

"Wait? What?" Sanji squealed when Robin roughly grabbed her by the waist and pulled down her trousers.

In complete mortification Sanji tried to cover her legs with her arms before darting behind her kitchen counter. Were all women like this because Sanji wasn't prepared to stay with them in their room if it was? The men she had been around had never shown this kind of behaviour to another man.

"Robin what are you doing?"

"Be happy it's me," Robin replied not fully answering her question. "If Nami was here she would have already stripped you down to your skin."

"But Chopper," Sanji once again becoming aware that there was another in the room.

"Don't worry Chopper's a doctor," Robin said glancing at the reindeer who was still completely engrossed in Robin's book. "Right Chopper."

"Yep," the reindeer was only half listening to the conversation. "Nothing I haven't seen before."

"Chopper!" Sanji scolded but the reindeer shrugged and carried on reading. Letting out a giggle Robin went to Sanji's open trunk behind the counter. She pulled out a pair of suit trousers before frowning and beginning a more thorough search.

"My my Sanji-san. I think Nami would do more then strip you down to get her hands on these clothes. I mean your whole wardrobe was designed and made by the world renowned Lord Michael Evenstar. He stopped production when he found his calling."

"Really?" Sanji relaxed slightly. "He never said that. I don't think Nami would fit into any of these anyway. I am a bit twiggy."

"Don't let her hear you say that. She'll accuse you of calling her fat."

"Never. Not Nami-swan. She's perfect, not like me. I'm so flat I might as well still be a man."

"Not from some of the looks we got out in Fishman Island," Robin replied. "Ah here we go."

A pair of grey/blue cropped jeans and some tan lace up ankle boots. The heels on the boots were just as high as her red lace ups. "This will do nicely."

Sanji looked at her dubiously as Robin held out the clothes.

"Well go on… put it on."

Still trying to cover her legs she snatched the jeans and ducked behind the counter. She slowly began to calm as she got dressed, especially when she put on the heels. Like with her old black shoes, she had grown quite accustomed to her heels, they had become part of her new self that she was quite comfortable with.

"I was worried for a second that you were going to make me wear a skirt."

"We'll leave that for Nami to sort out. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable so soon."

The blonde scoffed.

"Well you did a good job, although I don't think molesting your nakama could be considered as making me comfortable."

"I'll take that as a thank you… Your welcome." Robin beamed. "Now I fancy a bit of breakfast."

The cook perked up a bit. Cooking breakfast she can handle. Besides if she was cooking Robin couldn't pull any more weird crap on her.

"Of course Robin-chan, what would you like?"

"I don't know something simple sounds nice. What do you think Chopper?"

Chopper seemed to have woken up a bit and looked up and smiled.

"Yeah, something simple and nutritious."

"Sounds good to me. I learned how to make this porridge that could keep you going for days."

"Perfect," Robin smiled. "Although I don't think those lingering outside the kitchen door quite approve…"

* * *

Zoro yawned as he and Usopp made their way across the deck towards the galley. The swordsman had woken up unusually early and was not happy. He hadn't been the only one, Chopper was missing from his bunk and it looked like shit-cook hadn't even made it to her bunk at all.

After returning from the bathroom Usopp appeared with a yawn and they both headed towards the kitchen. Maybe they could get a bit of breakfast before their bottomless pit of a captain woke up.

Then again if pigs could fly…

"And then me and Hercules-san went and defeated the whole fleet of pirates that wanted to land on the island. They didn't know that we were just doing it for their own good. I mean they would have been eaten straight away. I used my sniping…"

Zoro blocked out Usopp's ramblings as they made their way up the stairs. However when they got to the kitchen door Zoro stopped when he heard a startled gasp.

"And then of course things got worse when a Sea King got beached and the island decided it was hungry. I had 100 tonnes of Sea monster heading towards me as I held on for dear life."

"Usopp," Zoro whispered as he held up his hand to stop. "Shut up."

"What?"

Zoro held his finger to his lips and placed his ear against the door.

"I thought I heard something."

Usopp nodded and put his head against the wooden door as they started to listen.

"_.. how…"_ it was muffled but it sounded like Sanji.

"… _good with my hands …"_ that was Robin.

Zoro blushed; he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Glancing at Usopp who was wearing an unreadable expression he leaned in to try and hear more of what is going on.

"_Robin!" _he could hear the cook much clearer, well kind of.

"_Really Sanji-san, I don't see what's wrong."_

"_But."_

"_Stand still."_

There was silence and Zoro couldn't help but wonder what Robin was doing to the poor cook.

"_Very nice if I don't say so myself. Now to sort out those sweatpants." _

"_Wait? What?"_ The cook let out the most girlish squeal Zoro had ever heard.

"_Robin what are you doing?"_

"_Be happy it's me, if Nami was here she would have already stripped you down to your skin."_

Right Zoro shouldn't be listening to this. Whatever was going on in the dining room wasn't right. That was where they ate. He had to put a stop to it right now, but he couldn't bring himself to move.

"…_Don't worry Chopper's a doctor. Right Chopper."_

"_Yep. Nothing I haven't seen before."_ The doctor shouldn't be in there.

"_Chopper!"_ Sanji shouted and Robin giggled mischievously. There was a loud 'thunk' and Robin spoke up again.

"_My my Sanji-san. I think Nami would do more then strip you down to get her hands on these clothes. I mean your whole wardrobe was designed and made by the world renowned Lord Michael Evenstar. He stopped production when he found his calling."_

"_Really? He never said that. I don't think Nami would fit into any of these anyway. I am a bit twiggy."_

"_Don't let her hear you say that. She'll accuse you of calling her fat."_

"_Never. Not Nami-swan. She's perfect, not like me. I'm so flat I might as well still be a man."_

"_Not from some of the looks we got out in Fishman Island,"_ Robin replied. _"Ah here we go."_

"_This will do nicely."_

"_Well go on… put it on."_

There was a pause and Zoro relaxed. Maybe Zoro was getting the wrong idea.

"_I was worried for a second that you were going to make me wear a skirt."_

"_We'll leave that for Nami to sort out. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable so soon."_

"_I'll take that as a thank you… Your welcome." _Robin said._ "Now I fancy a bit of breakfast."_

"_Of course Robin-chan, what would you like?"_

"_I don't know something simple sounds nice. What do you think Chopper?"_

"_Yeah, something simple and nutritious." _The reindeer spoke up again.

"_Sounds good to me. I learned how to make this porridge that could keep you going for days."_

"Porridge? No!" Usopp gasped and Zoro cringed but it was too late.

"_Although I don't think those lingering outside the kitchen door quite approve…"_

The two men froze as the door swung open with a swirl of petals.

There stood Robin and Sanji by the counter and Chopper was sat at the table looking curiously at the doorway.

Robin stood with her arms crossed smiling at Zoro and Usopp. Sanji on the other hand stood in absolute shock. Zoro gaped at the outfit she was wearing, as the slim jeans and heels made those deadly legs look divine. It felt wrong looking at shit-cook in such a manner.

Slowly Sanji's features morphed from shock to anger, an expression that reminded them so much of the old Sanji.

"How long have you two been listening?"

Usopp stuttered.

"We … err… Zoro."

"Oh why am I not surprised?" Sanji sneered. "You now make a habit on spying on nakama, eh Marimo?"

"Now see here Curly cue," Zoro retorted. "Its not as though we could come walk in from what I was hearing. Who knows what we could have walk in."

And what is that supposed to mean?"

"It was perfectly clear that you were walking around half naked."

"Why you pervert!"

"Me? I'm the pervert. That's rich coming from you shit-cook."

"What!"

"You know what I mean. You've always been trying to score with anything that breathes."

"Well I don't with you!"

"And what a blessing that is! You make me sick just having to watch you!"

Usopp sighed and walked over to the table where Robin and Chopper resided. The two continued to argue but they tuned them out with practiced ease.

"This isn't going to get anywhere," he sighed. "And I'm hungry, even if it is just stupid porridge."

"Don't worry Usopp they'll stop soon," Robin replied.

She was right of course. Within minutes of arguing the door slammed open and they were bowled over by an overly excited captain shouting about MEAT. They couldn't exactly argue when they are both pummeling their clueless captain.

…Some things never change…


End file.
